WHAT    IS     A 
CHRISTIAN 

JOHN  W  POWELL 


V* 


NOV  R  1916 


BR  121  ,P7  1915 

Powell,  John  Walker,  1872- 

1953. 
What  is  a  Christian? 


WHAT  IS  A  CHRISTIAN? 


2&^& 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO  •   DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •    BOMBAY  ■    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


WHAT  IS  A  CHRISTIAN? 


A  Book  for  the  Times 


BY 

y 

JOHN    WALKER   POWELL 

AUTHOR   OP    "  THE    POETS'    VISION   OF   MAN 
"THE    SILENCES    OF   THE    master" 

"him  that  overcometh" 


THE   MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1915 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1915, 
By  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  October,  1915. 


NorfoooU  Presa 

J.  S.  Cushing  Co.  —  Berwick  <fe  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


Go 

THE    MEMORY    OF 

MY  FATHER 

A    FRONTIER    METHODIST    PREACHER 
OF   THE    OLD    SCHOOL 

AND   OF 

MY  MOTHER 

A    SIMPLE    CHRISTIAN 


INTRODUCTION 

The  war  in  Europe  has  caused  great  search- 
ings  of  heart  among  thoughtful  people  the 
world  over,  who  are  asking  if  this  is  all  we 
have  to  show  for  nineteen  centuries  of  Chris- 
tian teaching.  Browning's  lines  come  to 
mind,  of  the  Christ 

"Whose  sad  face  on  the  cross  sees  only  this, 
After  the  passion  of  a  thousand  years." 

President  Eliot  declares  the  Christian  ethics 
a  failure.  John  Galsworthy  announces  the 
death  of  mystical  Christianity.  A  writer  in 
the  Century  discusses  the  collapse  of  the 
church.  The  man  in  the  street  is  asking, 
"Is  the  Christian  ideal  indeed  practicable, 
or  must  the  world  go  back  in  the  end  to  the 
ancient  doctrine  that  Might  makes  Right?" 

The  magazines  in  particular  have  been 
filled  with  discussions  of  this  sort.  It  is  true 
that  as  the  first  shock  of  the  great  catastrophe 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

has  passed  away  and  men  have  begun  little 
by  little  to  find  themselves  and  to  think  more 
or  less  clearly,  the  problem  is  seen  to  be  less 
acute  than  was  at  first  supposed. 

The  great  war  is  seen  to  be  no  isolated  phe- 
nomenon, but  merely  the  culmination  of  a 
long  period  of  incubation. 

The  brutality  of  militarism  appears  on 
second  thought  to  be  not  much  worse  than 
the  brutality  of  industrialism. 

Nevertheless  the  twentieth  century  has 
been  rudely  startled  out  of  its  complacency, 
and  the  world  has  been  driven  to  look  to  the 
foundations  of  its  thinking ;  to  ask  the  mean- 
ing of  its  ultimate  ideals,  its  fundamental 
principles. 

While  the  discussion  concerning  the  break- 
down of  Christianity  was  at  its  height,  one 
of  the  popular  magazines  in  a  moment  of 
unusual  insight  propounded  the  far-reaching 
query,  "What  is  a  Christian?"  How  far 
may  one  lag  behind  his  Master  in  thought 
and  practice  without  forfeiting  his  right  to 
the  title  ? 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

It  is  true  the  magazine  in  question  light- 
heartedly  desired  an  answer  in  five  hundred 
words.  Nevertheless  the  question  struck  at 
the  root  of  the  matter,  and  gave  rise  to  some 
real  thinking. 

The  answers  received  by  the  magazine 
revealed  a  surprising  degree  of  popular  spirit- 
ual insight.  Coming  from  laymen  rather 
than  ministers,  from  men  more  than  women, 
from  the  plain  people,  not  the  professional 
classes,  and  being  fairly  distributed  over  the 
whole  country,  they  constitute  perhaps  the 
most  comprehensive  plebiscite  on  religious 
questions  ever  taken  in  America. 

In  the  main  these  letters  show  that  the 
common  religious  thought  has  progressed 
greatly  in  thirty  years. 

There  was  little  mention  of  orthodoxy,  little 
emphasis  on  details  of  doctrine,  little  con- 
fusion of  thought  over  problems  of  scholar- 
ship. Neither  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  nor 
the  dust  which  filled  the  air  a  few  years  ago 
from  the  critical  disintegration  of  the  Scrip- 
tures seemed  to  worry  the  writers  in  the  least. 


x  INTRODUCTION 

This  was  not  the  complacent  dogmatism 
which  ignores  the  problem,  but  the  steadfast 
conviction  that  the  results  of  critical  scholar- 
ship have  not  affected  the  main  question. 
Evidently  the  world  has  moved  since  Robert 
Elsmere  and  The  Reign  of  Law. 

Christianity  was  defined  in  terms  of  the 
spirit  rather  than  the  letter,  —  even  as  re- 
gards the  teachings  of  Jesus  himself. 

Moreover  the  distinction  between  a  religion 
and  a  system  of  ethics  was  not  lost  sight  of. 
The  heart  of  the  whole  matter  was  found  in 
personal  loyalty  to  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  desire 
to  embody  his  Spirit  in  the  common  life. 

None  the  less,  in  spite  of  the  high  degree 
of  insight  displayed  by  these  popular  letters, 
the  confusion  of  tongues  which  arose  with 
the  outbreak  of  the  war,  and  no  less  the 
vagueness  of  outline  more  or  less  character- 
istic of  the  letters  themselves,  suggest  the 
desirability  of  undertaking  a  more  definite 
and  comprehensive  answer  to  the  fundamental 
question  —  though  it  may  require  much  more 
than  five  hundred  words. 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

The  papers  which  follow  represent  a  series 
of  discussions  before  a  congregation  of  average 
folk,  who  seemed  to  find  them  enlightening. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  they  do  not  pre- 
tend to  be  exhaustive.  They  do  undertake, 
however,  to  be  comprehensive. 

They  are  the  outgrowth  of  a  fairly  wide 
acquaintance  with  theological  scholarship. 
There  are  many  works  of  popular  theology 
which  deal  with  single  phases  of  the  theme, 
but  the  author  knows  of  no  other  single  book 
which  attempts  to  survey  the  whole  field  for 
the  general  reader. 

The  aim  has  been  to  keep  the  matter  within 
the  range  of  the  utmost  brevity  compatible 
with  any  degree  of  clearness,  and  to  present 
the  so-called  modern  standpoint  in  untechni- 
cal  language  with  a  view  to  helping  the  man 
in  the  street  to  clear  up  his  thinking. 

Any  reader  who  cares  to  follow  up  the 
various  phases  of  the  subject  in  works  of 
popular  religious  teaching  is  referred  to  the 
bibliography  which  is  appended  to  this  intro- 
duction.    Not  all  the  writers  therein  referred 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

to  agree  in  all  points  with  each  other,  nor 
with  the  viewpoint  set  forth  in  these  pages. 
The  author  ventures  to  believe,  however, 
that  in  the  main  the  conclusions  he  has  advo- 
cated will  be  generally  recognized  as  essential 
Christianity. 

If  some  would  add  thereto,  few,  he  believes, 
would  subtract  from  his  conclusions,  nor 
would  any  deny  the  name  Christian  to  one 
who  should  embody  in  a  fair  and  growing 
degree  the  spirit  and  ideals  for  which  he 
contends. 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  answer  the  main 
question  in  a  single  sentence. 

Jesus  himself  virtually  defined  a  Chris- 
tian as  one  who  loves  God  with  all  his  heart 
and  his  neighbor  as  himself. 

John  Wesley  wrote  a  tract  on  "The 
Character  of  a  Methodist,"  in  which  he 
adopted  this  definition,  simply  expanding  it 
in  terms  of  eighteenth  century  thought. 

An  aged  and  saintly  minister  of  the  Bap- 
tist church  was  once  asked,  "What  is  a  Bap- 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

tist?"  He  replied,  "A  Baptist  is  one  who 
believes  that  no  form  of  worship,  nor  book, 
nor  creed,  nor  priest,  can  come  between  any 
man  and  his  Lord." 

Such  definitions  are  infinitely  suggestive. 
Our  difficulties  begin  when  we  ask  what 
they  mean. 

If  the  Christian  ideal  could  be  clearly  de- 
fined or  perfectly  realized,  it  would  cease  to 
interest  us,  for  the  simple  reason  that  it  would 
no  longer  be  an  ideal. 

It  is  the  greatness  of  Christianity  that  no 
age  has  been  able  to  exhaust  it;  that  each 
succeeding  generation  has  found  new  light 
to  break  forth  from  it,  has  grown  by  it,  and 
has  found  it  in  turn  to  grow  in  significance 
and  power. 

It  is  by  this  that  it  has  challenged  the 
ages,  and  has  given  men  reason  to  regard  it 
as  the  supreme  and  ultimate  revelation  of  God. 

Every  age  has  had  its  own  answer  to  the 
question,  What  is  a  Christian?  The  spirit- 
ual ideal  of  the  twentieth  century  is  quite 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

other  than  that  of  the  seventeenth,  which  in 
turn  differed  from  the  viewpoint  of  the 
twelfth  as  that  from  the  faith  of  the  first 
century. 

In  the  beginning  it  was  enough  that  a 
man  should  follow  Jesus. 

After  his  death,  two  questions  were  asked 
by  the  apostles  of  those  who  would  unite  in 
their  fellowship  :  Do  you  believe  that  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  was  the  promised  Messiah  of  whom 
the  prophets  spake?  and,  Do  you  believe 
that  God  raised  him  from  the  dead? 

There  were  many  other  things  which  were 
believed  and  taught  by  the  apostolic  church. 
To  charge,  with  some  recent  writers,  that 
Peter  and  Paul  corrupted  the  simplicity  of 
the  primitive  ideal  by  concessions  to  the 
demands  of  the  world,  by  reason  of  their 
ambitious  desire  to  transform  the  growing 
church  into  a  world-power,  is  to  beg  the  whole 
question  of  the  essential  character  of  the 
Christian  teaching. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  evident  that  the  theo- 
logical interpretation  of  the  Christian  message 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

was  second  in  order  of  time  if  not  of  im- 
portance. 

The  fundamental  question  concerned  the 
Messiahship  of  Jesus  as  witnessed  by  his 
resurrection:  "If  thou  shalt  confess  with 
thy  mouth  Jesus  as  Lord  (i.e.,  Messiah  or 
Christ),  and  shalt  believe  in  thine  heart  that 
God  hath  raised  him  from  the  dead,  thou 
shalt  be  saved." 

It  was  regarded  as  desirable,  —  in  some  sense 
essential,  —  that  the  believer  should  receive 
the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit ;  but  those  disciples 
of  Apollos  whom  Paul  found  at  Ephesus  were 
accepted  though  they  had  "not  so  much  as 
heard  whether  the  Holy  Spirit  were  given." 

Social  workers  have  often  pointed  to  the 
community  of  goods  practiced  by  the  infant 
church  at  Jerusalem  as  an  essential  part  of 
New  Testament  Christianity ;  but  there  is 
not  a  shred  of  evidence  that  such  commu- 
nism was  observed  anywhere  outside  of  Jeru- 
salem, whether  at  Rome,  or  Ephesus,  or 
Corinth,  or  Antioch,  or  any  other  of  the 
apostolic  churches. 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

It  was  simply  such  communism  as  was 
practiced  during  the  early  months  of  the  War 
in  Brussels  or  Antwerp,  where  the  common 
distress  induced  those  who  had  means  to 
share  with  their  less  fortunate  brethren. 
Blockaded  communities  on  the  Dakota 
prairies  in  frontier  days  often  resorted  to 
the  same  method  of  meeting  the  situation. 

.  When  Ananias  kept  back  part  of  the  money 
which  he  and  his  wife  received  for  the  sale  of 
their  land,  Peter  rebuked  him  not  for  keeping 
the  money,  which  the  apostle  declared  was 
their  own  to  do  with  as  they  saw  fit,  but  for 
lying  to  the  Holy  Spirit. 

Three  hundred  years  later  new  conditions 
confronted  the  growing  church,  and  new 
definitions  of  discipleship  became  necessary. 

Various  attempts  had  been  made  to  inter- 
pret the  faith  in  terms  of  the  prevailing 
philosophy.  Two  questions  in  particular, 
both  of  them  utterly  foreign  to  both  the  lan- 
guage and  the  spirit  of  the  New  Testament, 
exercised  men's  minds. 

The   first   was   whether    Christ's   essential 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

nature  was  of  the  same  or  only  of  similar 
substance  to  that  of  God  —  whether  one 
should  say  homo-ousion  or  homoi-ousion.  The 
other  was  whether  the  Holy  Spirit  proceeded 
from  the  Father  alone,  or  from  both  the 
Father  and  the  Son. 

Both  questions,  it  is  manifest,  were  con- 
cerned with  the  central  dignity  and  worth 
of  the  person  of  Christ.  The  present  gen- 
eration is  concerned  with  the  same  issue, 
though  the  form  of  the  discussion  is  greatly 
changed. 

So  great  was  the  popular  interest  in  these 
questions  that  we  are  told  one  could  not  ask 
for  a  fish  at  the  market,  or  desire  the  atten- 
tions of  the  barber  at  the  bath,  without  being 
met  with  a  volley  of  theological  reasoning. 

Finally  the  church,  in  council  at  Nicea  in 
325,  voted  in  effect  that  a  Christian  was  one 
who  accepted  the  statement  of  faith  cham- 
pioned by  Athanasius,  namely,  that  the  Son 
was  of  the  same  substance,  homo-ousion,  with 
the  Father,  and  that  the  Holy  Spirit  pro- 
ceeded from  both  the  Father  and  the  Son. 


xviii  INTRODUCTION 

We  have  nothing  to  do  at  this  point  with 
the  validity  of  these  distinctions.  It  suffices 
merely  to  point  out  that  the  determining 
mark  of  a  Christian  in  the  fourth  century 
differed  widely  from  that  of  the  apostolic 
age. 

During  the  Middle  Ages  a  Christian  was 
one  who  was  obedient  to  the  church. 

This  involved  the  acceptance  of  the  stand- 
ards of  belief,  but  the  essential  thing  was 
obedience.  King  John  of  England  was  ex- 
communicated, not  for  his  crimes,  nor  be- 
cause he  was  a  heretic,  but  because  he  refused 
to  abide  by  the  judgment  of  the  Pope. 

With  the  coming  of  the  Reformation  the 
matter  became  yet  more  confused.  The  Ro- 
man Church  still  declined  to  recognize  as 
Christian  any  who  refused  to  obey  her  will. 
In  the  Protestant  churches  orthodoxy  be- 
came once  more  the  test,  but  there  was  much 
dispute  as  to  the  essentials  of  the  orthodox 
faith. 

This  controversy  still  echoes  in  ecclesias- 
tical circles,  as  witness  the  exclusion  of  Ed- 


INTRODUCTION 


xix 


ward  Everett  Hale  from  the  Federal  Council 
of  the  Churches  of  Christ  in  America  a  few 
years  ago. 

Of  course,  in  no  age  was  the  matter  as 
simple  as  this  brief  outline  of  ecclesiastical 
history  would  indicate.  Every  age  has  had 
its  standards  of  belief,  its  forms  of  ecclesias- 
tical discipline,  as  well  as  its  notions  of 
Christian  morals. 

Two  tendencies  are  noteworthy,  however, 
particularly  in  the  mediaeval  period. 

The  first  is  a  growing  danger  that  the 
demands  of  the  moral  life  be  obscured  by  em- 
phasis on  orthodoxy  and  conformity.  Brown- 
ing's bishop  of  St.  Praxed's  is  fairly  typical 
of  the  mediaeval  ecclesiastic. 

A  good  example  of  the  religious  standards 
of  the  time  is  found  in  Benvenuto  Cellini,  as 
arrant  an  old  reprobate  as  ever  flourished 
in  the  world,  a  boastful  swashbuckler  who 
thought  little  of  killing  a  man  before  break- 
fast, and  whose  moral  standards  in  general 
were,  to  say  the  least,  somewhat  informal. 

He  records  that  after  his  unjust  imprison- 


xx  INTRODUCTION 

merit  by  Pope  Paul  (another  of  the  signs  of 
the  times),  during  which  period  he  enjoyed  the 
utmost  spiritual  consolation  from  his  devo- 
tions, his  sanctity  was  evidenced  by  an 
actual  halo  which  surrounded  his  head,  and 
which  was  plainly  seen  by  his  friends  —  after 
he  had  called  their  attention  to  it  —  though 
it  was  more  clearly  visible  in  the  twilight, 
and  flourished  better  in  the  moist  atmosphere 
of  Italy  than  in  the  drier  climate  of  France ! 

The  second  tendency  is  that  of  a  double 
moral  standard,  one  for  the  ordinary  man 
and  another  for  the  saint. 

The  Catholic  Church  has  long  distin- 
guished between  "precepts"  and  "counsels 
of  perfection."  The  former  are  commands 
of  Jesus  which  are  absolute  and  binding  upon 
every  one.  The  latter  are  special  virtues  sug- 
gested by  the  New  Testament,  the  practice 
of  which  is  not  obligatory,  but  which  may  be 
chosen  by  any  one  who  desires  to  follow  the 
higher  path  and  to  acquire  special  merit. 
Such  are  the  practice  of  celibacy,  or  the 
monastic  withdrawal  from  the  world. 


INTRODUCTION  xxi 

The  Protestant  churches  reject  this  dis- 
tinction, but  the  spirit  of  it  persists  to  this 
day  in  the  feeling  that  the  ordinary  citizen 
is  not  bound  by  as  lofty  a  moral  standard  as 
the  church  member,  who  in  turn  is  entitled 
to  a  certain  measure  of  indulgence  unbecom- 
ing in  the  minister. 

Underneath  these  tendencies,  however,  and 
beneath  the  particular  emphasis  on  special 
phases  of  the  Christian  teaching  peculiar  to 
each  age,  the  world  has  never  failed  to  recog- 
nize a  way  of  thinking  about  life,  a  spirit  and 
a  moral  ideal,  which  are  essentially  Christian. 
The  question,  What  is  a  Christian?  is  con- 
cerned with  the  understanding  of  these  deeper 
essentials. 

What  is  the  common  denominator  of  the 
Christian  centuries,  of  theological  parties 
and  religious  sects  ? 

What  is  there  which  in  every  age  has  under- 
lain its  particular  type  of  religious  teaching, 
and  which  has  broadened  and  deepened  in  its 
influence  upon  mankind  until  it  has  over- 
shadowed all  other  forms  of  religious  specula- 


xxii  INTRODUCTION 

tion,  and  to-day  challenges  humanity  with 
its  claim  to  universal  supremacy? 

If  the  Christian  ideal  must  be  set  aside,  if 
the  Christian  thought  is  too  restricted  to 
interpret  reality  as  the  modern  world  per- 
ceives it,  just  what  precisely  is  the  ideal,  what 
is  the  philosophy  which  must  be  given  up  ? 

The  question  presents  several  distinct 
phases,  none  of  which  must  be  overlooked  if 
our  answer  is  to  be  completely  satisfying. 

There  is  a  Christian  way  of  thinking  about 
things,  of  interpreting  the  world  in  which  we 
live. 

There  is  a  Christian  type  of  moral  life,  a 
Christian  ethical  ideal. 

There  is  a  Christian  spirit ;  a  form  of  emo- 
tional experience  based  on  the  acceptance  of 
the  Christian  philosophy  and  the  attempt  to 
carry  it  out  in  practice. 

There  is  a  Christian  type  of  society,  a 
Christian  program  for  the  working  out  of 
human  relations. 

There  is  a  Christian  hope  for  the  destiny 
of  the  individual  and  of  the  race. 


INTRODUCTION  xxiii 

Finally,  there  is  a  Christian  organism  in 
which  the  whole  movement  finds  embodiment 
and  expression. 

To  regard  any  single  one  of  these  elements 
as  the  whole  of  Christianity  is  to  miss  the 
significance  of  them  all,  for  they  bear  a  close 
relation  with  each  other. 

We  may  consent  to  regard  certain  of  them 
as  of  more  fundamental  importance  than  the 
rest;  we  may  regard  as  Christian  any  man 
who  measurably  conforms  to  any  of  them. 
But  we  have  not  answered  the  question  with 
which  we  began  in  a  way  which  can  ulti- 
mately satisfy  any  one  unless  we  take  all  of 
them  into  account. 

All  these  phases  of  the  Christian  teaching 
and  life  have  their  root,  not  in  pure  specula- 
tion, not  merely  in  certain  forms  of  logical 
reasoning,  but  also  in  the  history  of  more 
than  nineteen  centuries.  Our  judgment  of 
them  must  rest,  therefore,  not  alone  on  the 
logic  of  rigor  and  vigor,  but  on  the  logic 
of  experience  as  well.  Certain  events  and 
characters    of    which    history    is    the    judge 


xxiv  INTRODUCTION 

must  enter  into  our  understanding  of  the 
whole. 

From  this  discussion  it  is  evident  what 
must  be  the  standpoint  from  which  our  under- 
standing of  the  whole  matter  begins,  as  well 
as  the  natural  divisions  into  which  the  sub- 
ject must  fall. 

That  the  outcome  will  not  be  final  and  con- 
clusive goes  without  saying.  Life  is  fragmen- 
tary, tentative,  developing,  in  this  as  in 
every  age.  No  man  can  see  it  as  a  whole. 
No  man  can  exhaust  the  significance  of  its 
factors,  no  man  can  see  the  end  from  the 
beginning. 

One  can  only  declare  the  truth  that  is  in 
him,  in  the  hope  that  his  vision  may  help  his 
brother  on  the  road  to  Enlightenment,  and 
in  the  faith  that  in  the  fulness  of  time  every 
lover  of  the  truth  shall  have  a  part  in  that 

"Far-off  divine  event 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves." 

John  Walker  Powell. 
Minneapolis, 

August,  Nineteen  Fifteen. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

A  few  of  the  more  or  less  popular  discussions  of 
religious  problems  are  listed  here. 

The  Philosophical  Background 

Creative  Evolution,  Henri  Bergson. 
Personalism,  Borden  P.  Bowne. 

The  Problem  of  Human  Life;  The  Truth  of  Religion, 
Rudolph  Eucken. 

Pragmatism;  The  Meaning  of  Truth,  William  James. 
What  Can  I  Know  ?  George  Trumbull  Ladd. 

Works  on  General  Theology 

Outlines  of  Theology,  William  N.  Clarke. 
System  of  Christian  Doctrine,  Henry  C.  Sheldon. 

The  Modern  Viewpoint 

Culture  and  Restraint,  Hugh  Black. 

Studies  in  Christianity,  Borden  P.  Bowne. 

The  New  Theology,  R.  J.  Campbell. 

Orthodoxy,  G.  K.  Chesterton. 

Can  We  Still  Be  Christians?  Rudolph  Eucken. 

The  Finality  of  the  Christian  Religion,  Geo.  B.  Foster. 

What  is  Christianity  ?  Adolph  Harnack. 


xxvi  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Things  Fundamental,  Charles  E.  Jefferson. 
Reconstruction  in  Theology,  Henry  Churchill  King. 
What  Ought  I  to  Believe  ?  George  Trumbull  Ladd. 
Religious  Certainty,  Francis  J.  McConnell. 
Religions  of  Authority,  A.  Sabatier. 
The  Gospel  for  an  Age  of  Doubt,  Henry  van  Dyke. 

The  Bible 

Sixty  Years  with  the  Bible,  Wm.  N.  Clarke. 
Verbum  Dei,  Robert  F.  Horton. 
Beacon  Lights  of  Prophecy,  A.  C.  Knudson. 
The  Problem  of  the  Old  Testament,  James  Orr. 
Modern  Criticism  and  the  Preaching  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, George  Adam  Smith. 

Teaching  of  Jesus 

The  Kingdom  of  God,  A.  B.  Bruce. 

The  Ideal  of  Jesus,  Wm.  N.  Clarke. 

Jesus  and  the  Gospel,  James  Denny. 

The  Teaching  of  Jesus,  Robert  F.  Horton. 

The  Ethics  of  Jesus,  Henry  Churchill  King. 

The   Message    of    Jesus    (Outline    Studies),    Shailer 
Mathews. 

The  Ethic  of  Jesus,  James  Stalker. 

The  Mind  of  the  Master,  John  Watson  (Ian  Mac- 
Laren) . 

Social  Problems 

The  New  Crusade,  Charles  E.  Jefferson. 

Crowds,  Gerald  Stanley  Lee. 

The  Church  and  the  Changing  Order,  Shailer  Mathews. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  xxvii 

Jesus  Christ  and  the  Social  Question;  Approach  to 
the  Social  Question,  Francis  G.  Peabody. 

Christianity  and  the  Social  Crisis;  Christianizing  the 
Social  Order,  Walter  Rauschenbusch. 

Sin  and  Society,  Edward  A.  Ross. 

My  Religion,  Leo  Tolstoi. 

The  Call  of  the  Carpenter;  The  Carpenter  and  the 
Rich  Man,  Bouck  White. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAOR 

I.     The  Faith  of  a  Christian          ....  1 

II.    The  Ethics  of  Jesus 22 

III.  The  Christian  and  War 54 

IV.  The  Christian  and  Wealth       ....  88 
V.     The  Christian  Ideal 114 

VI.     The  Christian  Hope     ......  140 

VII.     The  Christian  Church 166 


xxix 


WHAT   IS   A    CHRISTIAN 


THE  FAITH  OF  A   CHRISTIAN 

The  present  generation  is  impatient  of  theo- 
logical distinctions.  It  would  like  to  abolish 
all  the  creeds  and  unite  the  churches  in  one 
great  religious  trust. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  common  sense  in 
this  reaction  against  the  theological  hair- 
splitting of  former  times.  We  refuse  to  be- 
lieve that  a  man's  opinions  on  the  minute 
details  of  history  or  metaphysics  are  sufficient 
either  to  admit  or  to  exclude  him  from  the 
kingdom  of  grace  and  glory. 

Fifty  years  ago  the  orthodox  Christian 
was  quite  convinced  that  no  Unitarian  could 
be  saved.  There  are  not  wanting  many  to- 
day who  have  some  doubt  regarding  the 
Christian  Scientist. 


2  WHAT  IS  A  CHRISTIAN 

A  sounder  instinct  gleams  through  the 
reply  of  Father  Taylor,  the  Boston  patriarch 
and  friend  of  Emerson,  to  some  of  his  Metho- 
dist brethren  who  inquired  if  he  thought  the 
gentle  Concord  philosopher  had  been  saved. 
"All  I  know,"  was  the  tart  response,  "is 
that  if  he  has  gone  to  Hell,  he'll  change  the 
climate." 

John  Wesley  anticipated  the  modern  point 
of  view  when  he  declared:  "I  am  sick  of 
opinions.  I  am  weary  to  bear  them;  my 
soul  loathes  the  frothy  food.  Give  me  solid, 
substantial  religion;  give  me  a  humble, 
gentle  lover  of  God  and  man,  a  man  full  of 
mercy  and  good  fruits,  a  man  laying  himself 
out  in  the  work  of  faith,  the  patience  of  hope, 
the  labor  of  love.  Let  my  soul  be  with  those 
Christians  wheresoever  they  be  and  whatso- 
ever opinions  they  are  of." 

He  published  the  life  of  a  Unitarian  minister 
for  the  edification  of  the  Methodist  folk,  and 
when  taken  to  task  therefor  replied,  "I  have 
nothing  to  do  with  this  man's  opinions,  but 
I  dare  not  say  he  is  not  a  Christian." 


THE  FAITH  OF  A  CHRISTIAN       3 

But  while  we  acknowledge  the  justice  of 
this,  we  all  realize  that  there  is  a  Christian 
way  of  thinking  about  things,  as  well  as  one 
that  is  not  Christian.  Robert  Ingersoll  may 
have  been  an  excellent  man,  but  his  was  not 
a  Christian  philosophy.  Herbert  Spencer  was 
a  man  of  the  finest  character,  whose  life  bore 
many  traits  of  the  Christian  ideal,  but  his 
thinking  was  diametrically  opposed  to  that 
of  Christianity,  as  he  and  every  one  else  well 
understood. 

We  are  also  coming  to  see  that  philosophy 
bears  fruit  in  life ;  that  in  the  long  run  a 
man's  moral  ideals  will  be  determined  by  his 
answer  to  the  fundamental  questions  re- 
garding the  nature  of  existence. 

Details  of  doctrine,  such  as  the  questions 
raised  in  the  fourth  century  about  the  pro- 
cession of  the  Holy  Spirit  or  in  the  sixteenth 
about  the  nature  of  the  Eucharist,  may  not 
have  an  immediate  bearing  upon  conduct; 
but  the  deeper  and  more  far-reaching  ques- 
tions regarding  the  existence  and  character 
of   God   and   His   relation   to   humanity   are 


4  WHAT  IS  A   CHRISTIAN 

bound  sooner  or  later  to  determine  the  moral 
ideal.  The  pragmatists  have  taught  us  that 
any  idea  which  has  proven  fruitful  in  actual 
life  must  be  regarded  as  essentially  true; 
but  the  converse  of  this  proposition  is  equally 
valid,  namely,  that  a  true  idea  will  work 
good  to  humanity  and  a  false  one  will  work 
harm. 

It  is  of  the  highest  importance,  therefore, 
that  we  shall  know  what  is  the  essential 
Christian  philosophy.  What  is  Christian- 
ity's answer  to  the  deepest  questions  of  the 
human  spirit  concerning  the  nature  of  reality, 
the  ground  of  human  existence,  the  end  and 
purpose  of  life? 

Volumes  have  been  written  on  this  ques- 
tion, and  it  is  difficult  to  sum  the  matter  up 
within  the  limits  of  a  single  chapter  in  any 
way  that  shall  be  entirely  satisfactory. 

There  are  four  elements,  however,  which 
may  be  regarded  in  some  sort  as  constituting 
the  essence  of  the  Christian  philosophy. 
They  are  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  the  Brother- 
hood of  Man,  the  Mastership  of  Jesus  Christ, 


THE  FAITH  OF  A  CHRISTIAN       5 

and   the   Immortal    Destiny   of   the   Human 
Soul.     Let  us  see  briefly  what  these  mean. 


Christianity  grounds  its  life  on  the  convic- 
tion that  the  Universe  is  neither  an  accident 
nor  the  product  of  a  blind  Necessity,  the 
mere  interaction  of  matter  and  motion,  of 
law  and  force.  On  the  contrary  it  regards 
all  Reality  as  the  continual  activity  of  One 
who  knows  what  He  is  doing  and  where  He 
is  going. 

This  is  what  Christianity  means  by  a 
personal  God.  It  believes  that  all  existence 
has  its  root  in  a  conscious  and  intelligent 
Purpose,  and  that  this  purpose  is  good. 

I  am  not  attempting  now  to  defend  this 
conviction,  but  merely  to  define  it,  being 
fully  persuaded  that  when  it  is  rightly  under- 
stood it  commends  itself  to  intelligence,  and 
stands  in  its  own  right,  without  need  of 
further  witness.  It  is  simply  the  faith  that 
life  is  not  meaningless ;  that  the  intelligibility 
of  Nature  which  makes  science  possible  is  a 


6  WHAT  IS   A  CHRISTIAN 

sufficient  ground  for  confidence  in  the  ra- 
tionality of  the  whole  process. 

Christianity  has  nothing  to  do  with  ques- 
tions of  order  and  method  in  creation;  but 
it  stands  ready  to  defend  to  the  uttermost 
its  conviction  that  life  is  real  and  earnest  and 
worth  while,  and  that  it  is  grounded  in  no 
blind  and  barren  mechanism  but  in  an  eternal 
and  patient  purpose  for  good  not  unlike  that 
of  a  wise  father  for  his  children. 

This  of  course  implies  the  spiritual  sonship 
of  humanity.  It  suggests  that  man  is  capable 
of  understanding  in  some  degree  the  reason 
and  purpose  of  his  existence ;  that  there  is 
in  him  a  capacity  for  some  measure  of  spir- 
itual communion  with  the  Being  Who  created 
him  and  to  Whom  he  is  morally  responsible 
for  the  use  he  makes  of  the  gift  and  opportu- 
nity of  life. 

No  doubt  when  one  undertakes  to  think 
these  simple  propositions  through  they  in- 
volve a  considerable  amount  of  philosophical 
and  theological  reasoning.     They  raise  many 


THE  FAITH  OF  A   CHRISTIAN       7 

perplexing  questions.  It  is  possible  we  shall 
never  fully  understand  them  or  exhaust  their 
significance. 

But  in  the  terms  in  which  we  have  stated 
them  they  are  broad  and  simple  and  funda- 
mental. A  Christian  is  a  man  who  grounds 
his  life  upon  these  propositions ;  and  no  man 
who  denies  them  can  be  completely  and 
fruitfully  a  Christian,  no  matter  how  nearly 
he  approximates  the  Christian  ideal  in  his 
personal  life. 

This  is  not  saying  that  a  man  will  lose  his 
soul  for  denying  these  principles;  but  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  in  the  long  run  the 
Christian  ideal  stands  or  falls  with  them; 
and  the  nineteenth-century  philosophy  which 
began  by  questioning  them  has  issued  in 
the  twentieth-century  doctrine  —  exemplified 
these  last  days  —  that  might  makes  right, 
and  that  the  Christian  doctrine  of  brother- 
hood and  mutual  service  must  be  cast  as 
rubbish  to  the  void. 


8  WHAT  IS  A  CHRISTIAN 

II 

Christianity  likewise  pins  its  faith  to  the 
dignity  and  worth  of  humanity,  and  lays 
the  foundation  for  its  ethical  teaching  in  the 
doctrine  of  universal  brotherhood.  It  in- 
sists on  a  measure  of  moral  freedom  in  human 
nature.  It  refuses  to  interpret  humanity  by 
its  brute  origin ;  it  measures  man  rather  by 
his  spiritual  kinship  with  his  Creator. 

There  is  nothing  especially  distinctive  in 
this,  as  compared  with  other  forms  of  reli- 
gious faith.  The  stoic  philosophy  in  partic- 
ular was  akin  to  the  Christian  ethics  in  the 
lofty  dignity  of  its  conception  of  human 
values.  Christianity  simply  represents  the 
completest  development  of  the  spiritual  in- 
terpretation of  humanity,  finding  the  basis 
for  its  conception  of  human  dignity  in  its 
doctrine  of  God. 

The  point,  however,  to  be  kept  in  mind 
in  this  connection  is  that  Christianity  has 
actually  superseded  all  other  forms  of  religion 
in  the  thought  life  of  the  modern  world ;   and 


THE  FAITH  OF  A  CHRISTIAN        9 

the  question  is  not  between  Christianity's 
conception  of  humanity  and  that  set  forth 
by  other  faiths,  but  between  Christianity 
and  the  scientific  doctrine  which  regards 
mankind  as  nothing  more  than  a  by-product 
of  evolution,  being  in  reality  nothing  but  an 
exceedingly  intricate  automaton,  whose  con- 
scious processes  are  nothing  more  than  chemi- 
cal reactions  —  in  Spencer's  phrase,  "motor 
excitations  in  the  ganglia." 

Christianity  refuses  to  be  bound  by  this 
doctrine  of  mechanism. 

It  insists  that  such  a  theory  of  existence 
leaves  out  all  the  most  important  elements  of 
the  problem  and  simply  abandons  all  attempt 
to  interpret  reality. 

Claiming  the  right  to  believe  that  the  Uni- 
verse itself  is  personal  rather  than  mechanical 
in  its  deepest  ground,  Christianity  looks  upon 
the  human  personality  as  akin  to  the  divine, 
and  hence  vested  with  all  the  dignity  and 
infinite  value  of  sonship  to  God. 

Finding  this  worth  in  man  as  man,  it  re- 
fuses to  be  bound  by  caste  and  class  distinc- 


10  WHAT  IS  A  CHRISTIAN 

tions;  to  regard  any  race,  however  back- 
ward or  degraded,  as  alien  or  outcast. 

It  declares  that  the  strong  and  the  weak, 
the  civilized  and  the  barbarian,  the  cultured 
and  the  ignorant,  are  bound  together  by  ties 
which  cannot  be  broken  and  which  it  is  per- 
ilous to  ignore. 

Thus  it  finds  in  the  essential  character  of 
mankind  the  ground  for  its  personal  ethics 
and  no  less  for  its  social  theory.  It  bids 
the  strong  bear  the  burdens  of  the  weak, 
and  to  use  the  advantages  given  them  by 
their  larger  opportunities  in  the  interest  of 
the  common  good,  that  the  whole  level  of 
humanity  may  be  lifted  and  the  path  of 
spiritual  attainment  be  opened  to  the  weak- 
est and  most  ignorant. 

No  way  of  looking  at  humanity  less  com- 
prehensive than  this  or  with  a  less  resolute 
faith  in  the  essential  worth  and  dignity  of 
human  nature  and  the  possibilities  hidden 
beneath  the  most  unpromising  exterior  can 
be  regarded  as  Christian. 


THE   FAITH  OF  A  CHRISTIAN      11 

III 

Christianity  is  more,  however,  than  a 
system  of  metaphysics  or  of  ethics. 

It  is  an  historical  system  of  faith,  of  wor- 
ship, and  of  practice,  which  traces  its  origin 
to  the  life  and  teachings  of  a  single  man  whose 
character  it  regards  as  the  embodiment  of  its 
loftiest  ideals,  and  to  whose  personality  it 
pays  the  utmost  reverence,  both  offering  to 
him  and  demanding  in  his  name  the  highest 
allegiance. 

No  type  of  thought  and  life  which  ignores 
this  history  can  consistently  be  called  Chris- 
tian. We  may  not  settle  in  advance  the 
problems  of  historical  research,  nor  insist 
that  spiritual  truth  can  be  absolutely  bound 
up  with  any  happening  in  time  or  space ;  but 
we  have  a  right  to  insist  that  the  history  of 
Christianity  shall  receive  adequate  explana- 
tion. 

Sober  thought  refuses  to  believe  that  a 
great  and  creative  personality  can  be  the 
product  of  imagination. 


12  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

The  greatest  characters  of  fiction  and 
mythology  are  when  all  is  said  the  product 
of  manufacture,  of  the  synthesis  of  traits 
and  characteristics  found  in  the  experience 
of  humanity  itself.  Such  products  of  the 
imagination  always  bear  the  mark  of  the 
tool.  They  share  the  weakness  and  limita- 
tion of  their  creators.  No  one  imagines  that 
Jupiter  or  Hercules,  that  Don  Quixote  or 
Jean  Valjean,  ever  existed.  We  know  plainly 
that  the  former  were  the  product  of  the 
collective  imagination  of  the  Greeks,  as  the 
latter  of  the  creative  genius  of  their  authors. 

It  is  far  otherwise  with  the  characters  of 
Confucius  or  Gautama  or  Socrates.  Little 
as  we  know  of  the  actual  history  of  these 
men,  whose  images  have  come  down  to  us 
colored  by  the  imagination  of  their  disciples, 
no  serious  student  of  history  has  the  slightest 
doubt  not  only  that  they  existed,  but  that 
they  made  upon  the  mind  and  heart  of  their 
time  essentially  the  impression  that  is  handed 
down  to  us. 

If  the  character  of  Jesus  Christ  transcends 


THE   FAITH  OF  A  CHRISTIAN      13 

them  all,  so  that  by  common  consent  it  is 
impossible  to  sum  him  up  under  the  cat- 
egories of  ordinary  humanity,  it  is  the  more 
unbelievable  that  he  was  the  product  of  the 
crude  imaginations  and  narrow  prejudices 
of  a  group  of  Jewish  peasants  and  rabbis. 
Christianity  does  not  stand  or  fall  with  any 
particular  attempt  to  understand  or  inter- 
pret the  person  of  Christ;  nevertheless  in  a 
real  and  abiding  sense  Christianity  is  Christ. 

The  only  God  it  knows  is  the  Father  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  That  is  to  say,  it  believes 
in  God  as  Jesus  revealed  Him  by  precept  and 
example,  and  can  think  of  God  in  no  other 
terms.  When  it  wants  to  know  what  God  is 
like,  it  turns  to  Jesus  Christ  for  the  answer 
to  this  question. 

It  acknowledges  Jesus  as  the  ethical  Master 
of  mankind.  It  believes  that  he  revealed 
the  possibilities  of  manhood;  that  he  em- 
bodied in  his  own  character  the  loftiest  ideals 
in  a  way  that  cannot  be  transcended;  that 
every  succeeding  generation  may  under- 
stand him  more  perfectly,   may   more  com- 


14  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

pletely  incarnate  his  ideal  in  its  ethical  life, 
but  that  it  cannot  outgrow  him  or  leave  him 
behind. 

There  is  one  element  in  the  Christian  in- 
terpretation of  Jesus  which  is  largely  over- 
looked in  the  religious  thinking  of  the  pres- 
ent day,  but  which  has  nevertheless  played 
an  extremely  important  part  in  the  history  of 
the  Christian  faith.  That  is  the  conception 
of  Jesus  as  in  some  sense  the  Redeemer  and 
Savior  of  mankind. 

Christian  thought  has  from  the  beginning 
looked  on  Jesus  as  something  more  than  a 
spiritual  teacher,  or  even  as  the  incarnation 
of  the  moral  and  spiritual  ideal.  It  has 
found  in  him  the  supreme  spiritual  dynamic. 

His  death  has  been  regarded  as  the  central 
moral  tragedy  of  history,  in  some  strange 
fashion  involving  the  character  of  God  Him- 
self in  a  hand-to-hand  conflict  with  the  powers 
of  evil;  so  that  it  holds  a  unique  relation  to 
the  spiritual  history  of  the  race,  and  is  a 
fountain     of     healing     power     wherein     the 


THE   FAITH  OF  A  CHRISTIAN      15 

ceaseless  tragedy  of  human  experience  shall 
find  its  solution  and  the  moral  weakness  of 
mankind  be  strengthened  for  ultimate  vic- 
tory. 

Once  more  we  are  not  concerned  to  defend 
this  doctrine,  or  even  to  define  it  in  detail, 
but  only  to  point  out  its  central  place  in 
historic  Christianity.  If  it  is  ever  to  be  set 
aside  as  of  no  essential  importance,  the  burden 
of  proof  is  upon  those  who  would  reject  it. 
It  may  have  been  subject  to  many  grossly 
crude  and  imperfect  interpretations,  but  that 
it  has  hitherto  held  the  central  place  in  the 
Christian  philosophy  of  the  spiritual  life  there 
can  be  no  doubt. 

In  the  Christian  way  of  thinking  about 
things  Jesus  Christ  is  more  than  an  ideal. 
He  is  the  unfailing  fountain  of  spiritual 
power;  and  he  holds  that  place  in  virtue 
of  the  totality  of  his  human  experience, 
whereby  he  can  enter  sympathetically  into 
the  struggles  and  passions  of  the  weakest  of 
his  brethren  and  can  enable  them  to  be  more 
than  conquerors  in  life's  battle. 


16  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

It  is  evident  that  the  essential  thing  in 
the  Christian  attitude  toward  Jesus  is  not 
intellectual  interpretation  but  ethical  loyalty. 
It  does  not  ask  of  any  man  that  he  shall 
understand  Jesus;  it  does  insist  that  he  shall 
obey  him. 

The  modern  world  has  grown  weary  of 
theological  discussions,  and  it  resents  the 
attitude  of  orthodoxy  in  denying  the  name 
Christian  to  any  who  bear  the  spirit  of  the 
Master  though  they  may  not  interpret  him 
under  the  traditional  forms.  The  attitude 
of  Jesus  himself  to  the  men  and  women  about 
him  furnishes  ample  precedent  for  the  broad- 
est spirit  of  tolerance.  But  no  man  in  the 
first  century  or  the  twentieth  is  entitled  to  be 
called  a  Christian  who  does  not  offer  to  Jesus 
Christ  the  most  heartfelt  loyalty.  Richard 
Watson  Gilder  expressed  the  heart  of  the 
matter  in  his  well-known  lines : 

"If  Jesus  Christ  be  man, 
(And  only  a  man),  I  say 
That  of  all  mankind  I  will  cleave  to  him, 
And  to  him  I  will  cleave  alway. 


THE   FAITH   OF  A   CHRISTIAN      17 

"  If  Jesus  Christ  be  God, 

(And  the  only  God),  I  swear 
I  will  follow  him  through  heaven  and  hell, 
The  earth,  the  sea,  and  the  air." 

IV 

The  Christian  faith  concerning  the  Father- 
hood of  God,  the  Brotherhood  of  Man,  and 
the  Mastership  of  Jesus  Christ  does  not, 
however,  exhaust  its  thought  about  life;  for 
these  things  find  their  completion  in  the 
conviction  that  human  destiny  is  not  limited 
to  the  brief  years  of  earthly  existence,  but 
that  to  every  soul  is  granted  the  opportunity 
and  possibility  of  the  immortal  hope. 

A  man  may  be  Christian  in  his  spirit  and  pur- 
pose and  be  in  doubt  on  this  point,  but  there 
could  be  no  Christianity  without  it.  The 
Christian  interpretation  of  life  is  one  in  which 

"  Our  noisy  years  seem  moments  in  the  being 
Of  the  eternal  silence  :  truths  that  wake, 

To  perish  never ; 
Which  neither  listlessness,  nor  mad  endeavor, 

Nor  Man  nor  Boy, 
Nor  all  that  is  at  enmity  with  joy 
Can  utterly  abolish  or  destroy  !" 


18  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

The  Christian  view  of  immortality  is  not 
some  vague  hope  for  the  persistence  of  the 
race,  for  the  treasuring  up  in  some  other  form 
of  existence  of  the  net  results  of  human  ex- 
perience, somehow  detached  from  the  per- 
sistence of  the  human  consciousness.  It  is 
the  simple  and  inextinguishable  belief  that 
death  is  only  an  incident  in  individual 
experience,  and  that  the  soul  which  begins 
here  graduates  from  this  kindergarten  and 
primary  school  into  the  larger  experience 
of  an  exhaustless  future. 

Nor  can  we  ignore  the  fact  that  Christianity 
regards  this  conception  of  life  as  involving 
grave  moral  risk.  The  crude  notions  of 
Hell  which  medieval  Christianity  inherited 
from  paganism  may  have  been  outgrown. 
Our  growing  experience  of  the  healing  power 
of  spiritual  truth,  our  insight  that  punish- 
ment is  in  its  essence  remedial  rather  than 
retaliatory,  may  enlarge  our  hope 

"  That  somehow  good 
Will  be  the  final  goal  of  ill;" 

but  that  must  not  blind  us  to  the  note  of 


THE  FAITH  OF  A  CHRISTIAN      19 

solemn  warning  which  has  formed  so  essen- 
tial a  part  of  the  message  of  every  great 
spiritual  teacher,  and  was  so  gravely  and 
sternly  enunciated  by  Jesus  Christ. 

Life  from  the  Christian  viewpoint  is  a 
matter  of  infinite  possibilities,  and  for  that 
very  reason  a  thing  not  to  be  trifled  with  or 
lived  idly  or  carelessly.  The  brighter  the 
radiance  of  its  spiritual  light,  the  darker  by 
contrast  the  shadow  cast  by  moral  failure 
and  wrong. 

The  essential  meaning  of  the  whole  system 
of  Christian  thought,  from  its  belief  in  God 
and  its  loyalty  to  Jesus  Christ  to  its  fairest 
pictures  of  the  immortal  hope,  is  that  life 
has  a  great  and  inexhaustible  meaning,  by 
reason  of  which  it  is  also  an  achievement  and 
task  which  is  set  before  every  human  soul. 
To  him  that  overcometh  shall  be  given  a 
crown  of  life,  but  those  who  through  wil- 
fulness rebel  against  the  high  demands  of 
the  spirit,  or  through  cowardice  make  the 
great  refusal,  can  have  no  part  in  the  glory 
of  such  a  destiny. 


20  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

The  largest  hope  that  the  yearning  sym- 
pathy of  the  greatest  souls  has  been  able  to 
write  over  the  shadow  of  such  loss  is  that 
those  who  have  made  shipwreck  of  life  may 
pass  into 

"That  sad,  obscure,  sequestered  state 
Where  God  unmakes  but  to  remake  the  soul 
He  else  made  first  in  vain,  which  must  not  be." 

This  then  is  the  Christian  philosophy. 

Men  may  differ  in  their  understanding  of 
any  of  the  elements  of  this  thought,  but  no 
philosophy  of  life  which  leaves  out  any  of 
these  things  can  be  termed  in  any  adequate 
sense  a  Christian  philosophy.  A  man  may 
follow  the  Christian  ideal  or  manifest  the 
Christian  spirit  without  accepting  this  phi- 
losophy, but  such  moral  and  spiritual  grace  is 
none  the  less  the  fruit  of  the  Christian  teach- 
ing, the  twilight  glimmer  of  light  after  the 
sun  has  set.  In  the  long  run  there  can  be  no 
day  without  the  sunshine. 

The  Christian  ideal  cannot  long  survive 
the  decay  of  the  Christian  philosophy.  If 
this  way  of  thinking  about  things  be  sound, 


THE   FAITH   OF  A   CHRISTIAN     21 

we  may  more  adequately  understand  it  as 
the  ages  go  by,  but  we  cannot  exhaust  or 
transcend  it. 

If  Christianity  is  in  any  sense  the  ultimate 
religious  faith,  it  is  this  Christianity  which 
we  have  however  imperfectly  outlined.  This 
is  what  all  the  theologies  have  tried  to  say. 
These  are  the  essential  ideas  which  underlie 
the  teaching  of  all  the  churches  and  which 
have  been  embodied  in  the  Christian  thought 
of  all  the  ages  since  the  days  of  the  apostles, 
however  the  form  and  emphasis  may  have 
varied  from  generation  to  generation ;  and 
this  is  the  first  part  of  our  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion, What  is  a  Christian? 


II 

THE  ETHICS  OF  JESUS 

We  tried  in  our  first  discussion  to  show  that 
Christianity  has  by  no  means  meant  the 
same  thing  at  every  stage  of  its  history; 
and  moreover  that  it  is  made  up  of  several 
elements  and  involves  several  distinct  points 
of  view,  all  of  which  are  essential  to  a  complete 
understanding  of  what  is  meant  by  it. 

The  first  of  these  elements  was  found  to 
be  the  Christian  philosophy  of  life;  and  we 
undertook  to  sum  up  briefly  those  things 
which  a  Christian  ought  to  know  and  believe 
to  his  soul's  health. 

We  come  now  to  the  second  important  ele- 
ment in  the  complete  answer  to  the  question, 
What  is  a  Christian  ?  namely,  the  Christian 
standard  of  life,  its  moral  ideal. 

And  first  of  all,  we  must  undertake  to 
analyze  the  moral  teachings  of  the  founder  of 

22 


THE    ETHICS    OF    JESUS  23 

Christianity.  We  are  all  agreed  that  a  doc- 
trine is  known  by  its  fruits,  and  that  no  one 
ought  to  be  called  a  Christian,  however 
correct  his  intellectual  notions,  unless  his 
life  squares  with  the  principles  of  his  Master. 
Again  we  come  to  a  subject  upon  which 
volumes  have  been  written.  In  a  general 
way  we  know  what  we  mean  by  a  Christian 
life  based  on  the  teaching  and  example  of 
Jesus.  The  Golden  Rule,  purity  of  life, 
patience,  gentleness,  charity,  unselfishness, 
—  these  are  the  things  which  go  to  make  up 
the  Christian  ideal  in  the  common  thought 
of  mankind.  It  is  when  we  come  to  partic- 
ularize, to  define  the  elements  of  these  princi- 
ples or  their  application  to  the  problems  of 
everyday  life,  that  our  difficulties  arise. 

I 

Laying  aside  all  the  critical  questions 
raised  by  modern  scholarship  regarding  the 
authenticity  of  the  New  Testament  records 
and  the  degree  to  which  we  are  entitled  to 
feel  that  we  have  the  ipsissima  verba  of  Jesus, 


24  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

or  even  that  the  teaching  as  we  have  it  has 
not  been  colored  by  the  minds  of  the  New 
Testament  writers ;  and  assuming  that  in 
the  gospels  we  have  a  fairly  accurate  record 
of  what  he  said,  there  still  remain  serious 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  a  satisfactory  under- 
standing of  his  teaching. 

To  begin  with,  Jesus  made  many  extreme 
demands:  "I  say  unto  you  that  ye  resist 
not  evil";  "swear  not  at  all";  "take  no 
thought,  saying,  what  shall  we  eat  or  what 
shall  we  drink";  "sell  whatsoever  thou  hast 
and  give  to  the  poor,"  etc.  On  the  face  of 
it,  these  sayings  of  Jesus  make  an  absolute 
demand  for  non-resistance,  for  the  abjuring 
of  patriotism  and  national  loyalty,  for  poverty 
and  even  for  celibacy. 

Jesus  also  said  a  great  many  contradictory 
things.  He  bade  men  love  their  enemies, 
yet  he  said,  "If  any  man  come  to  me  and  hate 
not  his  father  and  mother,  he  cannot  be  my 
disciple."  He  taught  the  principle  of  non- 
resistance,  but  he  likewise  said,  "I  came  not 
to  send  peace    but  a  sword,"   and    told    his 


THE    ETHICS    OF    JESUS  25 

followers  that  if  any  of  them  lacked  a  sword, 
he  should  sell  his  garment  and  buy  one.  He 
himself  made  a  whip  of  small  cords  and  drove 
the  traders  from  the  Temple,  while  the  biting 
scorn  of  his  bitter  arraignment  of  the  Scribes 
and  Pharisees  is  not  surpassed  in  the  whole 
literature  of  invective. 

The  difficulty  of  reconciling  these  statements 
with  each  other  or  of  squaring  the  demands  of 
Jesus  with  the  conditions  of  everyday  life  has 
led  to  several  interpretative  expedients. 

The  most  convenient  way,  of  course,  is  to 
adopt  such  sayings  as  please  us  and  ignore 
the  rest. 

A  good  many  modern  interpreters,  having 
first  agreed  with  themselves  that  only  the 
sayings  which  represent  the  passive  virtues 
can  be  regarded  as  truly  Christian,  assert 
that  when  he  declared  these  great  truths 
Jesus  rose  to  the  supreme  moral  height,  but 
that  when  he  showed  anger  toward  the 
Pharisees  or  displayed  force  against  the 
traders  in  the  Temple,  he  sinned  against  his 
own  principles. 


26  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

This  is,  of  course,  at  the  outset  to  for- 
swear that  loyalty  to  the  Mastership  of 
Jesus  which  Christianity  historically  demands. 
To  adopt  this  position  is  to  substitute  some- 
thing else  for  Christianity,  which  may  be 
better  and  may  be  derived  from  certain  ele- 
ments in  the  Christian  tradition,  but  which 
surrenders  the  religious  history  of  the  last 
nineteen  centuries  as  abortive  and  futile. 

Akin  to  this  rejection  of  Jesus  in  the  name 
of  his  own  teachings  is  that  other  form  of 
skepticism  which  regards  the  whole  Christian 
program  as  an  impractical  idealism,  ema- 
nating from  the  brain  of  a  dreamer,  and 
which  a  practical  world  will  do  well  to  ignore. 
At  best  it  can  only  be  classified  with  Plato's 
Republic  and  the  Utopia  of  Sir  Thomas 
More  as  suggestive  attempts  to  picture  ideal 
conditions,  the  practical  value  of  which  lies 
simply  in  the  way  in  which  they  illustrate  cer- 
tain phases  of  ethical  philosophy.  They  may 
play  no  small  part  in  the  training  of  the  philo- 
sophical mind,  but  are  not  to  be  taken  seriously 
as  contributions  to  a  practical  social  program. 


THE    ETHICS    OF    JESUS  27 

Still  another  class  of  interpreters  regard 
the  teaching  of  Jesus  as  intended  only  for 
those  who  are  willing  to  withdraw  from  the 
world  of  everyday  life  and  live  for  the  ideal 
kingdom  of  the  future.  They  were  never 
intended  for  the  guidance  of  humanity  in 
general.  Jesus  had  no  thought  of  Chris- 
tianizing this  world,  of  developing  a  Chris- 
tian civilization;  but  only  of  gathering  out 
of  the  world  a  loyal  remnant  who  were  ex- 
pected to  follow  his  precepts  so  far  as  pos- 
sible in  their  relation  with  the  world  about 
them,  but  could  expect  to  see  them  completely 
fulfilled  only  in  that  divine  event  to  which 
the  whole  creation  moves. 

The  historic  attitude  of  the  Catholic  Church 
toward  the  teaching  of  Jesus  is  an  attempt  to 
compromise  by  distinguishing  between  the 
"precepts"  of  Jesus,  which  were  intended 
to  be  obeyed  by  every  one  and  to  lay  down 
the  principles  of  a  Christian  social  order  in 
the  world,  and  the  "counsels  of  perfection," 
which  could  be  perfectly  realized  only  under 
the   ideal   conditions   of   another   world,   but 


28  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

might  be  chosen  and  put  in  practice  so  far 
as  the  weakness  of  the  flesh  would  permit  by 
those  who  felt  called  to  be  saints. 

The  ordinary  citizen  might  make  war, 
accumulate  wealth,  marry,  and  live  the  com- 
mon life  of  mankind  in  the  world,  guided 
only  by  the  general  principles  of  integrity  and 
loyalty  to  the  truth.  The  higher  call  and 
the  life  of  religious  devotion  demanded  pov- 
erty, chastity,  and  non-resistance,  and  could 
be  followed  only  by  the  monk  and  nun.  It 
involved  a  complete  separation  from  the 
world  and  a  denial  of  all  human  ties. 

There  remains  for  consideration  one  other 
class  of  interpreters,  of  whom  Tolstoi  was  the 
most  conspicuous  representative,  who  de- 
mand literal  obedience  to  the  precepts  of 
Jesus  in  the  world  of  common  life;  who  in 
obedience  to  his  command  regarding  the 
taking  of  oaths  would  do  away  with  the 
state,  which  rests  upon  the  oath  of  alle- 
giance; in  obedience  to  the  law  of  non-re- 
sistance would  forbid  the  police  power  no 
less  than  war,  and  require  a  man  to  remain 


THE    ETHICS    OF    JESUS  29 

passive,  not  only  when  his  own  life  or  prop- 
erty is  in  danger,  but  even  when  the  life  or 
honor  of  his  wife  or  daughter  is  attacked; 
in  obedience  to  the  law  of  poverty  would 
forbid  all  property  and  establish  universal 
communism;  and  in  obedience  to  the  law 
of  love  would  require  that  the  slightest  whim 
of  the  meanest  beggar  shall  be  law  to  his 
prosperous  neighbors. 

Regarding  all  of  these  methods  of  inter- 
preting Jesus,  three  or  four  things  should  be 
said : 

The  notion  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  is 
an  imperium  in  imperio,  a  little  group  of 
brands  plucked  from  the  burning,  of  elect 
souls  who  have  chosen  to  separate  themselves 
from  a  doomed  world  and  to  be  guided  by 
laws  and  principles  utterly  contradictory  to 
the  life  of  the  world  and  completely  practi- 
cable only  in  a  future  state,  is  an  entirely 
understandable  one  in  behalf  of  which  much 
might  be  said.  It  was  for  centuries  essen- 
tially the  accepted  understanding  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  is  held  to-day  in  its  main  outlines 


30  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

by  the  whole  conservative  party  in  the  Chris- 
tian church. 

If  we  reject  this  viewpoint,  it  is  only  for 
two  reasons ;  first,  that  it  has  itself  never 
been  able  consistently  to  carry  out  its  own 
literalism,  but  has  weakened  its  spiritual 
power  by  a  never-ending  succession  of  com- 
promises with  the  world ;  and  second,  be- 
cause we  believe  that  the  essential  principles 
of  Jesus  have  a  wider  validity  than  men  have 
dreamed,  and  that  his  spiritual  power  is  in 
fact  in  the  long  run  capable  not  merely  of 
redeeming  a  mere  handful  of  elect  spirits 
out  of  a  doomed  race,  but  of  redeeming 
humanity  itself,  of  purifying  and  elevating 
the  whole  of  human  society  and  of  Chris- 
tianizing civilization.  Of  such  a  dream  the 
New  Testament  writers  themselves  caught 
glimpses  when  they  wrote  of  a  day  when  the 
kingdoms  of  this  world  should  become  the 
Kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  of  His  Christ. 

This  conviction  is  supported  by  the  fact 
that  some  of  the  religious  ideals  cherished  by 
the  earlier  interpreters  of  Christianity  have 


THE    ETHICS    OF    JESUS  31 

been  definitely  set  aside  by  the  verdict  of 
history. 

Monastic  asceticism  is  one  of  these.  The 
monastic  orders  failed,  not  because  their 
leaders  ceased  to  be  loyal  to  the  principles 
with  which  they  began,  but  because  the 
monastic  ideal  was  itself  a  false  and  distorted 
one  which  was  contrary  not  only  to  the 
weakness  of  fallen  human  nature,  but  to  the 
real  demands  of  the  loftiest  spirituality. 

If  Christianity  means  that  it  is  better  to 
starve  and  mistreat  the  body  than  to  live  a 
normal,  wholesome  physical  life ;  that  the 
loftiest  spiritual  attainments  are  not  com- 
patible with  the  obligations  and  responsibili- 
ties of  marriage  and  parenthood,  or  the  loyal 
discharge  of  the  obligations  of  everyday  life ; 
then  the  world  has  once  for  all  discarded 
Christianity,  and  we  had  best  recognize  the 
fact  and  set  about  adjusting  ourselves  to 
the  situation  as  it  exists. 

Mankind  will  never  go  back  to  the  ideals 
of  St.  Simeon  Stylites,  who  lived  for  thirty 
years  on  the  top  of  a  pillar ;  of  St.  Catherine, 


32  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

who  had  herself  bound  to  a  cross  for  several 
hours  of  every  day ;  of  St.  Anthony,  who 
fled  to  the  desert  to  escape  the  contamina- 
tion of  the  world  ;  nor  of  any  other  of  the 
ascetics  of  the  medieval  world,  whose  pic- 
turesqueness  at  the  distance  of  several 
centuries  is  only  equaled  by  the  morbid 
unwholesomeness  of  their  whole  attitude 
toward  life. 

The  double  moral  standard  involved  in 
the  Catholic  distinction  between  precepts 
and  counsels  of  perfection  is  likewise  one 
which  offends  the  moral  judgment  of  man- 
kind. We  all  refuse  to  believe  that  there  is 
one  standard  of  life  for  one  man  and  another 
for  his  neighbor. 

Of  course,  we  realize  that  for  particular 
occasions  and  under  special  circumstances  a 
greater  demand  may  be  made  upon  some 
individuals  than  others.  College  boys  in 
training  for  a  football  game  are  subject 
to  a  mode  of  life  which  is  not  normal  and 
which  if  continued  too  long  would  defeat 
its  own  end  of  high  physical  efficiency ;    but 


THE    ETHICS    OF    JESUS  33 

for  a  brief  period  the  special  sacrifices  de- 
manded   bring    about    proportionate    results. 

So  a  doctor  is  compelled  by  the  demands 
of  his  profession  to  make  sacrifices  which  the 
ordinary  citizen  escapes ;  the  teacher  and 
the  minister  must  make  peculiar  sacrifices 
to  their  calling;  the  work  of  the  missionary 
demands  a  degree  of  heroism  and  self-devotion 
to  which  everyday  life  is  a  stranger ;  the 
soldier  lives  under  conditions  which  would 
utterly  destroy  humanity  if  the  attempt 
should  be  made  to  apply  them  universally. 

But  we  refuse  to  believe  that  these  special 
sacrifices  involve  any  higher  degree  of  spir- 
itual worth  than  the  common  life.  The  cate- 
gories of  right  and  wrong  can  be  applied  only 
on  a  universal  basis.  A  system  of  ethical 
teaching  must  be  susceptible  of  universal 
application  or  it  is  valueless.  The  teaching 
of  Jesus  is  for  all  mankind  or  none. 

Finally,  there  is  no  hope  in  literalism.  If 
one  logically  and  consistently  attempts  im- 
partially to  apply  the  principle  of  literal 
interpretation  to  everything  which  Jesus  said, 


34  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

he  lands  in  hopeless  confusion  and  contradic- 
tion. 

Even  Tolstoi  can  make  headway  only  by 
accepting  one  or  two  of  the  sayings  of  Jesus 
which  he  will  interpret  literally  and  which 
he  will  then  make  the  standard  for  the  inter- 
pretation of  everything  else ;  anything  which 
seems  to  contradict  these  sayings  is  set  aside 
or  interpreted  out  of  existence. 

II 

Is  there  any  way  out  of  this  deadlock? 
Can  we  interpret  the  teachings  of  Jesus  in 
any  way  which  will  reveal  them  as  clearly  and 
indisputably  the  supreme  law  of  human  life? 

There  are  two  or  three  guiding  principles 
which  must  be  applied  in  any  adequate  study 
of  the  words  of  Christ. 

The  first  is  the  clear  recognition  of  his 
paradoxical  method. 

As  Wendt  pointed  out,  Jesus  was  an  Orien- 
tal, with  the  Oriental's  poetical  gift,  his  free- 
playing  imagination  and  love  for  figurative 


THE    ETHICS    OF    JESUS  35 

speech.  It  was  necessary  to  startle  men  out 
of  their  mental  and  spiritual  sluggishness; 
to  challenge  their  attention  and  to  compel 
them  to  think.  Accordingly,  Jesus  habit- 
ually employed  modes  of  speech  which  have 
been  an  unending  stumblingblock  to  our 
forthright  and  literal  western  minds. 

Thoughtful  readers  of  the  New  Testament 
are  coming  to  realize  how  much  of  metaphor 
there  is  in  the  speech  of  Jesus.  When  he 
declared  men  must  eat  his  flesh  and  drink 
his  blood,  we  no  longer  puzzle  our  brains  with 
metaphysical  mysteries  as  to  how  the  bread 
and  wine  of  the  Eucharist  can  be  transformed 
into  the  actual  literal  flesh  that  hung  on  the 
Cross,  or  the  blood  that  was  poured  out  of 
his  side.  We  frankly  recognize  a  daring 
metaphor. 

Even  the  doctrine  of  the  New  Birth  is 
nowadays  interpreted  less  by  the  grammar 
and  the  dictionary  than  by  the  broad  recogni- 
tion of  a  general  spiritual  law  of  which  birth 
is  the  aptest  symbol. 

We  do  not  so  readily  recognize  the  number 


36  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

of  statements  to  be  found  among  the  sayings 
of  Jesus  which  are  couched  in  an  extreme  and 
superlative  form  that  could  not  possibly  be 
accepted  literally.  An  instance  is  his  keenly 
humorous  remark  about  the  futility  of  trying 
to  remove  the  grain  of  dust  from  our  neigh- 
bor's eye  when  one  has  a  floor  joist  in  his  own. 

So  when  he  said,  "I  came  not  to  send  peace 
but  a  sword,"  no  one  has  ever  imagined  that 
he  meant  what  he  said;  men  have  always 
understood  the  saying  as  a  vivid  and  start- 
ling expression  of  the  inevitable  effect  of  a 
spiritual  revelation  in  a  world  so  largely 
governed  by  selfish  and  unspiritual  motives. 

In  like  manner,  when  he  promised  his 
followers  a  hundred-fold  return  in  this  pres- 
ent life  for  all  the  sacrifices  they  had  made 
for  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  Peter  and  John 
were  not  misled  into  expecting  to  become 
possessors  of  vast  landed  estates;  nor  did 
even  Tolstoi  attempt  to  interpret  this  saying 
literally. 

Our  common  sense  reduces  the  parallax  in 
such    sayings    as    instinctively    as    our   brain 


THE    ETHICS    OF    JESUS  37 

unifies  the  double  visual  image  projected  by 
our  two  eyes. 

So  when  Jesus  declared  that  no  man  could 
be  his  disciple  without  hating  his  own  mother, 
no  one  has  ever  for  a  moment  imagined  that 
Jesus  meant  this  literally.  We  recognize 
it  plainly  for  what  it  is,  an  extreme  and 
startling  statement  of  a  profound  spiritual 
truth.  The  statement  in  the  form  in  which 
it  was  made  could  not  by  any  possibility  be 
true.  We  frankly  discount  it  by  the  appli- 
cation of  common  sense. 

The  same  principle  is  applicable  to  the 
remark  of  Jesus  that  faith  equivalent  to  a 
grain  of  mustard  seed  could  transplant  trees 
and  remove  mountains.  No  one  imagines 
that  two  or  three  earnest  and  devoted  Chris- 
tians by  agreeing  in  prayer  could  have 
brought  the  Panama  Canal  into  existence 
without  physical  effort.  We  regard  the 
vision  and  courage  which  attempted  so  gigan- 
tic a  project  and  put  it  through  to  a  successful 
conclusion  as  a  real  fulfilment  of  the  promise 
of  Jesus. 


38  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

These  instances  of  paradoxical  method  are 
sufficient  to  excite  the  suspicion  that  possibly 
the  other  startlingly  difficult  sayings  of  Jesus, 
over  which  the  conscience  of  Christendom 
has  stumbled  for  two  thousand  years,  are 
susceptible  of  the  same  interpretation. 

Some  one  asks  in  alarm,  "Did  not  Jesus 
mean  what  he  said?" 

We  answer,  Yes,  by  all  means,  but  he  very 
seldom  said  what  he  meant. 

He  undertook  to  challenge  the  human  con- 
science by  a  loftier  ethical  ideal  than  men  had 
dreamed  of. 

He  knew  the  danger  of  laying  down  pre- 
cepts which  succeeding  generations  under  ever 
modifying  conditions  must  find  increasingly 
difficult  of  interpretation  and  application. 

He  wanted  to  compel  men  to  think  out 
their  moral  principles,  and  to  be  guided  by 
them  because  they  had  come  to  recognize 
their  validity,  not  because  they  had  been 
announced  with  authority. 

Accordingly  he  was  forever  saying  things 
which   could   not   be  literally  interpreted,  in 


THE    ETHICS    OF    JESUS  39 

order  that  men  might  be  driven  in  spite  of 
themselves  to  think  out  their  meaning. 

The  principle  of  non-resistance,  the  pro- 
hibition of  oaths,  and  the  warning  against 
anxiety  for  temporal  blessings  must  all  be 
interpreted  by  this  principle. 

When  he  bade  men  resist  not  evil,  he  was 
not  prohibiting  the  punishment  of  wrong  or 
the  defense  of  the  right,  he  was  declaring 
the  supreme  worth  of  the  virtue  of  forbear- 
ance. 

The  prohibition  of  oaths  had  nothing  to 
do  with  political  allegiance,  it  meant  simply 
that  a  man's  word  ought  to  be  as  good  as 
his  bond. 

The  warning  against  worldliness  and  es- 
pecially the  spirit  of  anxious  absorption  in 
material  things  was  nothing  more  than  a 
vivid,  thought-compelling  statement  of  the 
superior  worth  of  the  spiritual  over  the  tem- 
poral. 

The  second  guiding  principle  for  the  in- 
terpretation of  the  teachings  of  Jesus  is  to 


40  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

recognize  that  he  was  stating  ultimate  prin- 
ciples rather  than  laying  down  specific  rules. 

Every  lawyer  knows  the  difference  between 
constitutional  law  and  statutory  enactment. 
Strictly  speaking,  a  constitution  should  be 
nothing  but  the  statement  of  general  fun- 
damental principles.  The  statute  law  is  an 
attempt  to  apply  these  principles  under 
specific  conditions  to  specific  cases. 

It  is  impossible  to  enact  any  law  that  is 
valid  at  all  times  and  under  all  conditions. 
It  is  possible  so  to  analyze  the  principles  of 
justice  as  to  arrive  at  a  fundamental  legal 
doctrine  which  is  universally  valid  and  which 
the  judgment  and  practical  sense  of  every 
generation  must  apply  for  itself. 

It  is  impossible  to  find  among  the  sayings 
of  Jesus  anything  that  is  unmistakably  in- 
tended as  definite  command,  to  be  always 
and  everywhere  obeyed.  Some  of  his  sayings 
have  that  appearance  at  first  glance,  but  when 
we  look  carefully  at  the  circumstances  under 
which  they  were  uttered  and  their  relation 
to   his   other   and    broader   sayings,    we    see 


THE  ETHICS  OF  JESUS  41 

plainly  that  they  were  at  most  nothing  more 
than  illustrations  of  a  back-lying  general 
principle. 

What  Jesus  undertook  to  do  was  not  to 
legislate  for  all  times  and  all  conditions  of 
human  society,  for  that  in  the  nature  of  things 
is  impossible ;  but  he  sought  by  every  means 
to  establish  in  the  hearts  of  his  followers  the 
recognition  of  the  broad  fundamental  social 
and  ethical  principles  upon  which  all  sound 
living  must  rest,  and  which  constitute  the 
supreme  moral  ideal  of  humanity,  —  the 
flying  goal  toward  which  we  may  forever 
approach  but  which  we  can  never  exhaust 
and  surpass. 

The  third  guiding  principle  is  that  the  aim 
of  Jesus  was  not  to  conform  the  outward 
actions  of  men  to  the  letter  of  the  moral  law, 
but  rather  to  transform  them  by  the  awaken- 
ing of  a  loftier  and  truer  inward  spirit. 

This  is  the  significance  of  his  doctrine  of 
the  New  Birth.  He  declared  that  the  only 
way  to  get  good  fruit  is  to  make  the  tree  good. 


42  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

If  one  desires  grapes,  he  must  not  look  for 
them  on  a  thorn  tree.  Other  moralists  have 
aimed  at  constructing  a  perfect  ethical  sys- 
tem ;  Jesus  aimed  at  regenerating  human 
lives,  that  the  law  might  be  forever  written 
on  men's  hearts. 

Here  once  more  we  must  be  careful  not  to 
press  his  sayings  to  their  absolute  limit.  He 
did  not  mean  that  some  men  were  essentially 
thorn  trees,  from  whom  no  good  fruit  could 
be  expected.  But  he  recognized  what  every 
thoughtful  person  knows,  that  "'tis  one  thing 
to  know  and  another  to  practice";  that 
external  pressure,  whether  of  physical  force 
or  of  social  constraint,  may  compel  men 
outwardly  to  obey  the  correct  rules  of  con- 
duct, but  it  cannot  make  bad  men  good. 
Nothing  can  do  that  but  some  spiritual  in- 
fluence whereby  their  whole  inner  attitude 
toward  life  is  changed. 

Accordingly  Jesus  was  more  concerned  to 
set  in  motion  spiritual  forces  which  should 
of  themselves  work  out  in  human  life  a 
truly  moral   order   than   he  was   to   present 


THE   ETHICS  OF  JESUS  43 

men  with  a  perfect  Pattern  for  their  outward 
conduct. 

The  adoption  of  this  mode  of  interpreting 
the  ethics  of  Jesus  seems  to  leave  us  without 
any  ultimate  Moral  Authority.  "The  Pope 
has  wine,  but  no  wife.  The  Sultan  has  many 
wives,  but  no  wine."  Which  of  them  is 
right?  Or  are  they  both  partly  right  and 
partly  wrong  ? 

As  a  matter  of  fact  we  have  never  really 
had  an  authority,  appeal  to  which  could  settle 
this  question.  The  very  fact  that  Christen- 
dom itself  is  split  in  two  over  the  question 
as  to  where  the  seat  of  authority  lies  indi- 
cates that  the  whole  matter  rests  at  bottom 
on  our  choice  of  authorities,  which  in  turn  is 
dictated  by  a  thousand  influences  of  desire 
and  prejudice  as  well  as  of  reason. 

So  our  loss  is  only  an  imaginary  one.  In 
the  long  run  nothing  has  any  real  claim  upon 
our  ethical  obedience  which  does  not  com- 
mend itself  to  our  trained  and  cultivated  moral 
intuition. 

Nothing  is  gained  by  paying  verbal  trib- 


44  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

ute  to  the  authority  of  a  moral  principle, 
and  then  locking  it  away  in  a  glass  case  be- 
cause it  is  not  practical  under  the  limitations 
of  everyday  life.  Even  an  imperfect  moral 
ideal  which  is  a  living  factor  in  our  life  and 
has  an  actual  influence  upon  our  conduct  is 
worth  infinitely  more  than  the  most  perfect 
ideal  to  which  we  pay  only  verbal  reverence. 
If  we  will  take  our  common  sense,  stimu- 
lated and  purified  by  a  loyal  devotion  to  the 
loftiest  spiritual  purpose,  and  apply  it  to 
understanding  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  we  shall 
find  that  these  three  principles  which  we  have 
outlined  will  be  sufficient  to  put  us  in  touch 
with  his  purpose,  to  enable  us  to  understand 
and  grasp  his  spirit,  and  to  comprehend  the 
essential  ethical  principles  which  he  sought 
to  establish  in  human  life. 

Ill 

We  come  now  to  ask  what  are  the  essential 
elements  in  the  Ethics  of  Jesus?  They  are 
four  in  number : 

First,  character  is  the  chief  good. 


THE  ETHICS  OF  JESUS  45 

Not  possessions,  nor  fame,  nor  honor ;  not 
success  nor  prosperity ;  not  physical  pleas- 
ure and  ease ;  not  even  happiness  in  the 
common  understanding  of  the  word  which 
implies  the  satisfaction  of  all  the  ordinary 
desires  of  the  human  heart  —  including  many 
that  are  entirely  normal  and  in  most  cases 
legitimate :  none  of  these  can  completely  sat- 
isfy the  human  spirit  nor  fulfil  the  highest 
demands  of  life. 

No  man  has  attained  who  has  not  become  a 
good  man,  pure  and  loyal  and  true  of  soul; 
whose  character,  though  bought  at  the  cost 
of  all  the  common  aims  of  existence,  will 
stand  the  test  of  every  temptation  and  bring 
him  into  communion  with  the  Divine. 

Second,  judgment  must  lie  upon  the  spirit 
of  life  rather  than  upon  its  outward  conform- 
ity to  the  letter  of  the  law. 

This  is  the  other  side  of  the  principle  sug- 
gested a  moment  ago,  that  Jesus  aimed  at 
producing  a  right  spirit  rather  than  at  shap- 
ing men's  outward  acts.     The  essence  of  the 


46  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

moral  law  itself  lies  in  its  spirit  rather  than  in 
the  letter.  Hence  men  must  be  judged  by 
the  spirit  which  seeks  expression  in  outward 
acts   rather   than   by   their   acts   themselves. 

The  outward  law  concerns  itself  with  the 
various  degrees  of  the  crime  of  murder; 
Jesus  declared  that  the  real  sin  lies  in  the 
spirit  of  hatred  which  engenders  the  crime. 
The  law  carefully  guards  the  outward  purity 
of  men's  lives;  Jesus  said,  "Whoso  looketh 
on  the  sin  with  desire  hath  committed  it 
already  in  his  heart." 

This  is  a  principle  which  cuts  both  ways. 

Its  demand  is  infinitely  more  searching 
than  that  of  the  outward  law.  By  it  a  great 
many  respectable  citizens  of  irreproachable 
conduct  stand  condemned,  because  in  their 
hearts  they  have  transgressed  through  de- 
sires they  do  not  deem  it  expedient  to  grat- 

ify. 

But  on  the  other  hand  it  relieves  men  of 
the  intolerable  burden  of  Pharisaic  literalism. 
"'Tis  not  what  man  does  that  exalts  him,  but 
what  man  would  do." 


THE    ETHICS    OF    JESUS  47 

"What  I  aspired  to  be, 
And  was  not,  comforts  me : 

A  brute  I  might  have  been  but  would  not  sink  i'  the 
scale." 

Men  are  to  be  judged,  not  by  the  success 
with  which  they  have  put  their  ideals  into 
practice,  but  by  their  inward  love  and  loyalty 
to  the  ideal;  as  a  child's  often  mistaken  at- 
tempts to  help  are  taken  by  a  wise  love  not 
for  what  they  accomplish  but  for  the  motive 
that  prompts  them. 

Thus  men  are  forever  set  free  from  the 
bondage  of  the  letter,  to  live  henceforth  in 
the  liberty  of  the  spirit. 

Third,  love  is  the  supreme  dynamic  of  the 
moral  life. 

Love  toward  God  is  the  fountain  of  spir- 
itual power. 

Love  toward  men  is  the  spirit  which  alone 
can  inspire  those  actions  which  shall  be  es- 
sentially right. 

The  love  of  which  Jesus  speaks  is  not  the 
pleasant  sentiment  of  friendly  affection,  but 
"the  set  purpose  to  serve  and  please."     It  is 


48  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

the  quality  which  St.  Paul  celebrates  in  the 
Thirteenth  Chapter  of  First  Corinthians,  and 
implies  such  a  genuine  recognition  of  each 
other's  need  and  such  a  genuine  spirit  of  good 
will  as  must  make  wrong  to  one's  neighbor 
impossible  because  unthinkable,  and  bind 
humanity  together  in  a  perfect  civilization. 

Finally,  the  aim  of  all  life  is  mutual  service. 
No  man  is  truly  good  who  merely  abstains 
from  doing  harm.  The  final  test  of  all 
actions  is  whether  they  serve  the  well-being 
of  men. 

These  four  principles  sum  up  the  whole  of 
the  teaching  of  Jesus.  It  is  these  that  dif- 
ferentiate it  from  the  ethics  of  Confucius  or 
Buddha.  Though  susceptible  of  such  brief 
statement,  they  are  without  limit  in  their 
application  to  human  conditions  and  in  their 
power  to  uplift  and  transform  human  society. 

IV 

In  order  that  men  might  better  understand 
the  character  of  these  general  principles,  we 


THE    ETHICS    OF    JESUS  49 

find  Jesus  applying  them  to  some  of  the 
specific  problems  of  life  as  he  met  them  from 
day  to  day.  In  the  examination  of  these 
instances  other  subordinate  principles  emerge 
which  are  still  general  in  form,  but  which 
serve  to  narrow  the  field  of  application  and  to 
clarify  our  judgment  in  applying  the  larger 
principles  of  the  Master  to  the  problems 
which  arise  in  our  own  lives. 

The  first  is  loyalty  to  truth  and  right  at 
all  cost.  "Blessed  are  they  which  are  perse- 
cuted for  righteousness'  sake." 

Martyrdom  is  not  an  end  in  itself,  a  thing 
to  be  sought  for  its  own  sake. 

There  is  no  particular  virtue  in  suffering, 
nor  is  the  martyr  to  be  regarded  as  more  truly 
and  greatly  a  saint  than  many  another  whose 
outward  life  has  been  uneventful  and  whose 
moral  contests  have  not  been  open  to  the 
public  gaze. 

The  soldier  on  the  battle  field  gives  the  most 
spectacular  exhibition  of  courage  and  patri- 
otic loyalty,  but  for  all  that  he  may  be  no 


50  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

more  worthy  a  citizen  than  the  wife  who 
suffers  alone  at  home,  or  the  man  of  business 
who  struggles  arduously  and  patiently  to 
provide  the  sinews  of  war  and  to  keep  alive 
the  whole  nation  upon  whose  backing  the 
success  of  the  army  depends. 

Gouverneur  Morris  and  Benjamin  Franklin 
were  as  true  patriots  and  sacrificed  themselves 
for  their  country's  good  as  unhesitatingly 
during  the  troublous  days  of  the  American 
struggle  for  independence  as  any  soldier 
whose  bloody  footprints  stained  the  snow 
at  Valley  Forge.  "They  also  serve  who 
only  stand  and  wait." 

The  crux  of  the  whole  matter  is  the  inner 
loyalty  which  no  threat  of  pain  or  ruin  can 
shake.  No  man  is  a  disciple  of  Jesus  who 
is  not  ready  to  take  up  the  Cross  in  the 
Master's  name. 

The  second  is  the  doctrine  that  enmity 
and  revenge  must  give  place  to  forbearance 
and  love. 

The  spirit  of  retaliation  is  a  survival  of 


THE    ETHICS    OF    JESUS  51 

primitive  brute  instinct  which  must  be  up- 
rooted from  the  human  heart. 

Even  in  the  administration  of  justice  we 
are  beginning  to  see  that  patience  and  for- 
bearance may  enable  us  to  transform  the 
criminal  into  a  good  citizen. 

In  private  life  we  all  know,  if  we  do  not 
always  practice,  the  principle  that  forgive- 
ness and  the  returning  of  good  for  evil  heap 
coals  of  fire  on  our  enemy's  head,  and  go  far 
toward  making  enmity  impossible. 

Finally,   selfish  ease  and  indulgence  must 

everywhere  give  place  to  the  spirit  of  mutual 

helpfulness  if  society  is  to  rest  upon  a  sure 

foundation. 

"Ill  fares  the  land,  to  hastening  ills  a  prey, 
Where  wealth  accumulates  and  men  decay." 

A  Scottish  philosopher  several  hundred  years 
ago  hesitatingly  suggested  that  the  rulers  of  a 
city  would  commit  no  wrong  if  they  should  so 
legislate  as  to  put  an  end  to  poverty  within 
the  city's  gates.  We  are  coming  to  see  that 
as  a  matter  of  social  stability  the  existence  of 


52  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

great  wealth  side  by  side  with  abject  poverty 
is  a  serious  menace ;  and  that  the  few  have 
no  right  to  luxurious  ease  and  self-indulgence 
while  the  many  are  shut  out  from  the  necessi- 
ties of  a  well-ordered  life. 

So  the  science  of  human  society  is  coming  to 
pay  tribute  to  the  insight  of  Jesus,  who  taught 
as  a  matter  of  personal  righteousness  that  men 
must  give  up  their  own  selfish  comfort  and  ease 
for  the  sake  of  their  neighbor's  need. 

This  brief  review  of  the  teachings  of  Jesus 
is,  of  course,  extremely  cursory  and  super- 
ficial, but  enough  has  been  said  to  show  the 
essential  character  and  purpose  of  his  ethical 
doctrine. 

To  push  any  of  the  sayings  of  Jesus  to 
their  logical  extreme  is  to  weaken,  not  to 
strengthen,  their  significance  for  humanity. 

Surely  the  outline  here  given  of  his  ethical 
principles  does  not  soften  his  demand  for 
the  complete  surrender  of  the  heart  of  man 
to  the  will  of  God.  This  is  no  soft  and  easy 
doctrine  which  is  here  set  forth. 


THE    ETHICS    OF    JESUS  53 

But  neither  is  it  an  impossible  demand 
which  must  of  necessity  take  no  account  of 
average  humanity,  and  leave  men  floundering 
in  the  discouragement  of  acknowledged  spir- 
itual impotence. 

Jesus  began  his  ethical  teaching  with  the 
demand  for  a  righteousness  which  should  ex- 
ceed the  righteousness  of  the  Scribes  and 
Pharisees ;  but  he  closed  it  with  the  promise 
that  the  simplest  act  of  kindness  toward  the 
least  of  men  should  be  regarded  as  an  act  of 
loyalty  and  devotion  to  the  Eternal  Judge 
Himself. 


Ill 

THE   CHRISTIAN  AND  WAR 

In  our  discussion  of  the  ethical  teachings  of 
Jesus  we  found  that  the  two  most  important 
things  to  be  borne  in  mind  in  approaching  the 
sayings  of  the  Master  are,  first,  that  he  con- 
tinually employed  the  method  of  paradox 
in  order  to  startle  men  into  seriousness  and 
compel  them  to  think ;  and  second,  that  he 
was  concerned  with  laying  down  fundamental 
principles  rather  than  with  enacting  specific 
rules  of  conduct. 

The  main  elements  in  his  ethical  teaching 
were  found  to  be,  first,  that  character  is  the 
chief  good;  second,  that  judgment  is  based 
upon  the  motive  and  spirit  which  underlie 
human  action  rather  than  upon  conformity 
to  the  letter  of  the  law ;  third,  that  service 
is  the  aim,  and  love  the  supreme  dynamic,  of 
a  rightly  ordered  life. 

54 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND     WAR       55 

We  come  now  to  apply  these  principles  to 
the  first  of  the  two  chief  ethical  problems  of 
mankind,  the  problem  which  has  been  forced 
violently  upon  the  attention  of  humanity 
during  the  past  few  months;  namely,  that  of 
war. 

The  question  before  us  is  a  threefold  one. 
First,  can  a  Christian  consistently  engage 
in  war  even  in  obedience  to  his  country's  de- 
mand ;  second,  can  war  be  defended  in  any 
respect  as  a  means  of  settling  international 
disputes,  without  coming  into  direct  conflict 
with  the  spirit  and  teaching  of  Jesus ;  and 
third,  can  it  be  abolished? 

If  the  principles  which  we  have  adopted 
for  the  interpretation  of  the  New  Testament 
be  sound,  the  question  is  not  to  be  settled  by 
appealing  to  the  specific  words  of  Jesus,  no 
matter  how  emphatic  they  may  appear. 

The  Quakers  have  long  defended  the  doc- 
trine of  non-resistance  by  appealing  to  the 
words  of  Christ. 

Tolstoi,  as  we  have  seen,  founded  his  doc- 
trine upon  two  injunctions  of  Jesus:  "Resist 


56  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

not  evil,"  and  "Swear  not  at  all."  The  first 
he  declared  to  be  absolute  in  its  character 
and  to  forbid  not  only  private  revenge,  but 
even  the  organized  attempt  of  society  to 
suppress  wrong  through  the  exercise  of  the 
police  power.  The  second  was  interpreted  to 
forbid  the  taking  of  the  oath  of  allegiance, 
and  so  to  put  an  end  to  government. 

This  mode  of  interpretation  runs  so  directly 
counter,  not  only  to  our  common  sense  but 
even  to  our  most  carefully  reasoned  theories 
of  society  and  the  state,  that  Professor  Har- 
nack  is  justified  in  saying  that  if  Tolstoi's 
interpretation  be  Christianity,  then  Chris- 
tianity has  no  further  concern  for  us. 

The  instinct  of  self-defense,  and  much  more 
of  the  defense  of  the  weak  and  dependent, 
is  too  deep-seated  to  be  gainsaid.  The  in- 
stinct for  government  is  equally  fundamen- 
tal. To  assume  that  Jesus  Christ  had  any 
idea  of  overthrowing  either  of  these  funda- 
mental characteristics  of  humanity  is  either 
to  make  him  a  visionary  enthusiast  whose 
maunderings    have    no    interest   for    sensible 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WAR       57 

men;  or  else  to  assume  that  humanity  as 
originally  constituted  is  a  complete  failure, 
and  that  the  Almighty  has  undertaken  to 
destroy  the  work  of  His  hands  in  order  to 
make  a  new  start. 

Both  these  alternatives  are  so  extreme  that 
they  ought  to  be  adopted  only  as  a  last  resort. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  Tolstoi  himself  took  back 
with  his  left  hand  all  that  he  had  given  with 
his  right,  when,  after  strenuously  insisting 
that  the  words  of  Jesus  were  to  be  literally 
understood  and  unshrinkingly  applied  to 
human  problems,  he  confessed  that  this  was 
an  impossible  ideal,  and  declared  that  it  was 
set  forth  by  Jesus  on  the  principle  that  one 
must  aim  very  much  higher  than  the  mark 
he  really  intends  to  hit,  as  a  man  who  desires 
to  cross  a  violent  current  to  a  point  directly 
opposite  must  appear  to  be  rowing  toward  a 
point  far  up  the  stream. 

This  concession  leaves  us  exactly  where  we 
were  before,  and  bids  us  ask  what  is  that 
point  directly  opposite  which  Jesus  would 
have  us  reach.     In  answering   this  question, 


58  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

we  have  no  other  guide  than  that  wholesome 
and  spiritually-minded  common  sense  which 
we  found  to  be  everywhere  necessary  to  the 
understanding  of  Jesus. 

A  sound  interpretation  [of  his  teaching 
avoids  these  impossible  extremes  of  literalism 
and  at  the  same  time  affords  a  principle  suf- 
ficiently lofty  and  powerful  to  serve  as  the 
supreme    guide    in    the    affairs    of    men    and 

nations. 

I 

When  we  look  closely  at  those  sayings  of 
Jesus  which  seem  to  inculcate  the  doctrine 
of  non-resistance,  we  find  that  they  are  in 
reality  nothing  more  than  specific  applica- 
tions of  his  fundamental  principles  of  love 
and  service. 

When  these  principles  are  applied  to  the 
differences  which  inevitably  arise  between 
men  in  everyday  life,  Jesus  interpreted  them 
as  carrying  with  them  three  things ;  first, 
a  demand  that  all  men  should  recognize  the 
rights  and  necessities  of  others,  preferring 
to  sacrifice  themselves  rather  than  to  cause 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND     WAR       59 

others  to  suffer;  second,  the  spirit  of  the 
utmost  forbearance,  patience,  and  self-con- 
trol in  dealing  with  those  who  would  inflict 
wrong  upon  us ;  third,  the  utter  absence  of 
the  spirit  of  revenge  in  our  attitude  toward 
those  who  have  wronged  us.  The  disciple 
is  to  forgive  unto  seventy  times  seven.  We 
are  bidden  to  love  our  enemies,  to  return 
good  for  evil,  to  overcome  evil  with  good. 

In  these  three  principles  is  summed  up  the 
entire  ethical  philosophy  of  Jesus  as  it  re- 
lates to  the  natural  conflict  of  rights  which 
inevitably  takes  place  in  an  imperfectly  devel- 
oped social  order,  as  well  as  to  the  more 
serious  disorders  which  arise  from  the  pres- 
ence of  evil  and  perverse  men. 

Regarding  these  principles,  it  is  easy  to 
see  at  the  outset  that  they  run  directly 
counter  to  the  spontaneous  impulses  of  human 
nature.  It  is  natural  for  men  to  seek  their 
own  welfare,  to  assert  their  own  rights,  and 
to  leave  others  to  look  out  for  themselves. 

The  political  economy  of  a  century  ago 
erected  this  principle  of  self-interest  into  the 


60  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

governing  law  of  human  affairs,  and  declared 
that  all  that  was  necessary  in  this  world  was 
to  give  it  a  free  rein  and  let  the  conflict  of 
interests  bring  about  a  stable  social  order, 
as  the  balance  of  centrifugal  and  centripetal 
forces  keeps  the  earth  in  its  orbit. 

A  further  study  of  the  laws  which  govern 
human  relations,  however,  has  cast  serious 
doubt  upon  this  principle;  and  economists 
to-day  are  seeking  for  the  most  efficient 
means  of  restraining  the  impulses  of  self- 
interest  and  insuring  a  wholesome  regard 
among  men  for  the  interest  of  others.  It 
may  be  we  shall  ultimately  discover  that  the 
law  laid  down  by  Jesus  Christ  is  in  reality 
the  soundest  foundation  for  commercial  pros- 
perity and  social  well-being. 
|  There  is  no  doubt,  however,  that  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  runs  directly  counter  to 
natural  impulse,  nor  can  we  doubt  that 
history  hitherto  has  been  based  on  the  op- 
posite principle  of  self-assertion.  The  law 
of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  has  governed  the 
rise  and  decay  of  empires ;   and  war  has  been, 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WAR       61 

from  the  dawn  of  time,  the  principal  occupa- 
tion of  the  human  race. 

Yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  if  these 
principles  of  Jesus  were  put  in  operation, 
they  would  go  far  to  abolish  strife  of  all 
kinds  between  men  and  nations. 

If  we  may  assume  that  there  is  possible  a 
just  settlement  for  all  differences  of  opinion 
and  all  conflicts  of  right,  then  the  law  of 
mutual  regard  and  of  mutual  forbearance  is 
the  only  foundation  for  the  attainment  of 
that  end. 

Before  we  undertake  to  apply  these  princi- 
ples to  the  problem  before  us,  it  is  necessary 
to  ask  how  far  they  involve  the  doctrine  of 
non-resistance.  Do  they  forbid  self-defense 
or  the  punishment  of  criminals? 

By  no  means.  Love  does  not  mean  senti- 
mental indulgence  or  weak  yielding  to  the 
impulses  of  others.  The  steadfast  enforce- 
ment of  righteousness  is  the  truest  love  and 
the  largest  service.  That  father  is  not  the 
most  loving  who  is  most  weakly  indulgent 


62  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

toward  his  children,  nor  is  there  anything  in 
experience  to  indicate  that  to  allow  violent 
and  wicked  men  to  have  their  own  way  and 
to  work  their  will  upon  the  weak  and  defense- 
less can  have  any  good  end. 

But  experience  increasingly  shows  that  the 
steadfast  application  of  the  principles  of  for- 
bearance, patience,  self-control,  and  forgive- 
ness are  in  the  long  run  the  most  powerful 
weapons  against  oppression  and  wrong.  A 
soft  answer  turneth  away  wrath. 

An  immediate  application  of  force  may 
sometimes  be  necessary  to  restrain  the  evil- 
doer and  prevent  the  injury  that  he  would 
work ;  but  when  once  he  has  been  prevented 
from  putting  his  evil  impulses  into  effect, 
the  application  of  the  principles  of  Jesus  to 
all  further  dealings  with  him  is  a  much  more 
effective  way  of  meeting  the  situation  than 
the  opposite  method  of  violence  and  revenge. 

We  have  learned  that  even  in  the  punishment 
of  criminals  nothing  is  gained  by  undue  sever- 
ity. At  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  century 
more  than  a  hundred  crimes  were  punishable 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WAR       63 

by  death  under  the  English  law,  yet  this 
severity  did  not  avail  to  put  an  end  to  crime. 
We  are  coming  to  see  that  the  object  of 
punishment  is  not  vengeance  but  reformation. 
The  Warden  of  Sing  Sing  prison  inaugurated 
a  new  era  not  long  since  when  he  went  un- 
armed into  a  room  filled  with  prisoners,  sent 
out  all  the  guards,  and  talked  with  the  pris- 
oners, man  to  man,  regarding  various  phases  of 
their  life  together.  In  treating  them  as  men 
and  not  as  dogs  he  enlisted  all  of  their  own 
best  impulses,  and  already  we  are  told  that 
the  results  are  apparent  in  the  temper  of  the 
men  and  their  attitude  toward  the  obliga- 
tions that  are  laid  upon  them.  If  this  is  true 
in  dealing  with  hardened  criminals,  it  is  in- 
finitely more  true  in  the  common  relation- 
ships of  human  life,  wherein  by  far  the 
greater  portion  of  our  differences  grow  out  of 
our  ignorance  of  each  other's  life  and  our  fail- 
ure to  understand  each  other's  needs  and 
desires. 


64  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

II 

At  this  point  the  question  arises,  Can  these 
principles  be  applied  to  international  affairs? 
Can  states  be  called  upon  to  practice  the  law 
of  self-sacrifice  and  service  ? 

General  von  Bernhardi  emphatically  says, 
No ;  that  the  state  exists  to  protect  and 
enhance  the  welfare  of  its  subjects,  whose 
interests  are  jeopardized  in  any  act  of  self- 
sacrifice  on  the  part  of  the  state;  and  that, 
therefore,  the  Christian  law  cannot  be  held 
to  apply  to  international  affairs.  Let  us 
look  at  this  matter  a  little  more  closely. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  there  is  an 
element  of  truth  in  the  contention  that  the 
powers  and  responsibilities  of  the  state  differ 
in  many  respects  from  those  of  the  individual. 
Society  is  an  organism.  It  is  more  than  a 
mere  aggregation  of  individuals,  and  its  rights 
and  duties  are  more  than  the  sum  of  individual 
rights. 

The   state   exists   not   because   individuals 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WAR       65 

have  agreed  together  to  band  themselves  into 
such  an  organization  and  to  delegate  to  it 
certain  of  their  own  individual  rights  and 
powers,  which  they  undertake  henceforth 
to  waive.  Rather  the  state  is  brought  into 
being  through  the  very  existence  of  a  large 
number  of  people  living  together  in  a  re- 
stricted territory,  where  their  various  needs 
and  common  interests  create  the  necessity 
for  an  organized  life. 

There  are  a  great  many  things  which  society 
as  a  whole  can  do,  which  no  individual  ever 
could  do.  Both  the  need  and  the  power  to 
supply  it  are  created  through  the  existence 
of  the  common  life;  so  that  there  is  a  very 
real  sense  in  which  a  nation  is  to  be  regarded 
as  a  greater  person,  with  its  own  rights,  duties, 
and  responsibilities,  and  with  its  own  larger 
conscience. 

Even  the  mob  spirit  is  something  other  than 
the  sum  of  the  individual  impulses  of  the 
people  who  constitute  it.  Public  opinion  is  not 
merely  the  sum  of  the  opinions  of  the  majority 
of  individuals,  or  even  that  sum  minus  the 


66  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

sum  of  the  opinions  of  the  minority.  It  is 
something  more  intangible  and  at  the  same 
time  more  real  and  powerful  than  this. 

The  spontaneous  personification  of  nations 
which  takes  place  in  our  common  speech 
illustrates  a  half-unconscious  yet  instinctive 
recognition  of  this  truth.  Uncle  Sam,  shrewd, 
tolerant,  humorous,  kindly,  does  not  exist 
alone  in  the  imagination  of  cartoonists.  He  is 
a  real  being,  the  embodiment  in  concrete  form 
of  all  the  common  characteristics  and  im- 
pulses and  ideals  of  the  American  people. 
Bluff,  hearty  John  Bull  is  the  spirit  of  Eng- 
land. A  truth  is  expressed  under  the  guise 
of  these  half-humorous  personifications  which 
defies  analysis  in  the  terms  of  logic. 

This  STATE-PERSON  of  necessity  exer- 
cises many  powers  and  rights  greater  than 
those  of  the  individual.  The  right  of  the 
state  to  punish  wrong-doing  is  not  simply  the 
delegated  blood  right  of  the  individual  to 
vengeance.  The  state  stands  to  the  wrong- 
doer rather  in  the  relation  of  a  wise  father  to 
a  wilful  and  rebellious  child.     No  individual 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WAR       67 

could  ever  take  that  relation  to  the  criminal. 
It  belongs  to  the  state  as  a  matter  of  inherent 
right. 

The  real  question  is,  whether  war  is  one  of 
those  essential  rights  and  powers  of  the  state. 

The  question  is  in  reality  a  double  one; 
namely,  Is  war  ever  an  essential  right  of  the 
state,  and  must  it  be  forever  and  necessarily 
a  function  of  the  state? 

In  answering  these  questions,  several  con- 
siderations must  be  kept  in  mind. 

^The  first  is  that  the  state  itself  exists  as  a 
power  superior  to  and  taking  cognizance  of  the 
relations  of  individuals;  so  in  all  matters  of 
conflict  and  dispute  between  individuals,  the 
state  exists  to  adjust  these  relations  and  to 
insure  the  establishment  of  justice. 

Hence  all  disputes  and  conflicts  of  interest 
between  individuals  which  cannot  be  adjusted 
by  private  means  and  the  application  of 
the  Christian  spirit  may  find  their  proper 
adjustment  through  the  organized  life  of  the 
state. 


68  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

But  it  is  easy  to  see  that  no  such  larger  and 
all-inclusive  power  exists  with  relation  to 
states  themselves.  This  means  that  while  a 
great  many  minor  matters  of  difference  and 
dispute  may  easily  be  settled  by  conference 
and  adjudication,  in  the  larger  matters  which 
affect  the  essential  life  and  well-being  of  the 
state  itself  there  has  hitherto  been  no  possible 
arbitrament  but  that  of  reason  and  mutual 
concession,  or  failing  that,  the  sword. 

In  this  connection  it  is  necessary  to  keep 
in  mind  the  fact  that  so  far  at  least  in  human 
history  there  have  been  bad  states  as  well  as 
good  states.  At  best,  the  life  of  the  state  is 
imperfectly  moralized;  for  while  public  opin- 
ion is  something  more  than  the  sum  of  all  the 
private  opinions,  nevertheless  it  is  the  product 
of  private  opinions,  and  waits  upon  the  devel- 
opment of  private  character  and  judgment. 

If  we  have  not  succeeded  in  perfectly 
moralizing  the  relation  of  individuals  to  each 
other,  still  less  have  we  been  able  to  apply 
the  principles  of  justice  to  all  the  relations  of 
the  state-person. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WAR       69 

This  being  the  case,  it  is  inevitable  that 
conflicts  of  interest  should  sometimes  arise 
even  between  comparatively  good  states  — 
conflicts  touching  interests  so  fundamental 
that  no  adjustment  has  hitherto  been  possible 
save  through  the  appeal  to  the  sword.  Under 
such  circumstances,  to  deny  the  right  and 
justice  of  warfare  is  simply  to  shut  one's 
eyes  to  real  life  and  to  try  to  live  in  an  im- 
possible world  of  dreams. 

This  is,  of  course,  more  plainly  evident  in 
the  case  of  a  conflict  between  a  good  state 
and  a  bad.  Outside  of  the  closet  no  one  has 
ever  denied  the  right  of  a  peaceful  and  well- 
behaved  people  to  defend  themselves  against 
an  incursion  of  savages;  and  the  right  of 
any  nation  to  defend  itself  against  aggressions 
which  would  destroy  the  liberty  of  its  people 
is  equally  well  established. 

What  is  needed  at  this  point  is  to  face 
frankly  the  demands  of  common  sense,  and 
to  rid  ourselves  of  the  uneasy  feeling  that  this 
right  somehow  conflicts  with  the  Christian 
ideal. 


70  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

That  it  represents  a  state  of  affairs  that 
falls  short  of  the  ultimate  standard  set  by 
Jesus  Christ  for  the  life  of  men  and  nations 
there  can  be  doubt;  but  defensive  warfare, 
war  in  defense  not  only  of  national  life  and 
liberty  but  sometimes,  it  may  be,  even  in 
defense  of  national  ideals,  is  not  only  the  right, 
but  the  duty  of  nations  in  a  world  so  imper- 
fectly moralized  as  this  one  in  which  we  live. 

When  once  we  have  plainly  seen  this  truth, 
that  the  State-Person,  in  pursuance  of  its 
supreme  ends,  in  protecting  and  developing 
the  welfare  of  its  people,  is  charged  with  a 
right  and  a  responsibility  which  does  not 
exist  as  between  individuals,  we  begin  to  see 
how  it  may  be  that  a  Christian  may  love  his 
neighbor  as  himself  and  stand  ready  to  apply 
the  principles  of  sacrifice  and  forbearance  to 
the  utmost  degree  in  his  personal  relation- 
ships, and  still  consistently  obey  the  call  of 
his  country  to  take  up  arms. 

The  definition  of  war  as  one  little  girl's 
papa  going  out  to  murder  some  other  little 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WAR       71 

girl's  papa  is  nothing  but  sentimental  bosh. 
When  the  welfare  of  the  whole  people  is 
involved  or  a  great  principle  is  at  stake,  the 
individual  ceases  to  exist  as  an  individual  and 
becomes  only  a  cell  in  the  body  politic.  His 
acts  in  this  relation  are  no  longer  the  acts  of  an 
individual. 

War  is  not  legalized  murder,  but  it  is,  or 
at  least  may  be,  the  endeavor  to  defend  the 
right  and  to  attain  the  largest  social  well- 
being  ;  and  even  though  it  may  be  undertaken 
in  a  mistaken  cause,  it  is  still  justified  so  far 
in  the  experience  of  humanity  as  the  only 
known  means  whereby  certain  supreme  ends 
of  human  existence  could  hitherto  be  attained. 

It  is  only  on  this  ground  that  we  can  under- 
stand and  appreciate  the  undoubted  influences 
for  good  which  have  resulted  from  war. 

War  demands  the  supreme  sacrifice  of  the 
individual  to  the  common  weal. 

Hence  in  spite  of  all  the  suffering  and  heart- 
break involved,  and  in  spite  of  the  degrading 
and   brutalizing   influences   which   inevitably 


72  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

accompany  it,  war  has  a  remarkable  power 
to  heighten  the  moral  tone  of  the  community 
and  to  purify  and  ennoble  the  common  life. 
No  one  can  observe  the  seriousness  and  moral 
earnestness  which  characterizes  the  people 
of  Europe  in  the  present  struggle  without 
feeling  thai*  even  this  dreadful  sacrifice  may 
prove  to  be  not  too  great  a  price  to  pay  for 
such  ennobling  of  humanity. 

It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  wars  have  fre- 
quently had  a  remarkable  effect  on  civilization. 

The  Crusades,  for  example,  broke  down  the 
tyranny  of  church  and  state,  enlarged  the 
boundaries  of  human  thought,  and  marked 
the  beginning  of  the  modern  period  with  its 
immeasurable  developments  of  political  and 
intellectual  freedom. 

The  French  Revolution,  with  all  its  excesses, 
re-created  the  French  nation.  The  Franco- 
Prussian  War,  brought  about  as  it  was  by  the 
intrigues  of  Bismarck  and  carried  out  with 
bitter  and  needless  severity,  nevertheless 
hammered  the  German  people  into  unity  and 
created  the  German  consciousness;    and  its 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND     WAR       73 

effect  upon  France  was  in  many  respects  no 
less  beneficial. 

The  American  Revolution  did  almost  as 
much  for  democracy  in  England  as  in  America, 
and  the  Civil  War  not  only  destroyed  slavery, 
but  was  followed  by  an  unparalleled  industrial 
and  intellectual  expansion  of  both  the  North 
and  the  South. 

The  recognition  of  this  principle  also  ex- 
plains and  justifies  the  place  held  in  history 
by  the  great  struggles  for  liberty.  The  world 
would  be  infinitely  poorer  without  the  story 
of  Thermopylae  and  Marathon,  of  Lepanto 
and  Liege. 

Who  shall  dare  to  say  that  the  characters 
of  Leonidas  and  William  Wallace  and  Arnold 
von  Winkelried,  of  Gustavus  Adolphus  and 
Cromwell,  of  Washington  and  Grant,  of 
Stonewall  Jackson  and  Robert  E.  Lee  are  not 
among  the  noblest  in  the  history  of  mankind ; 
knightly  souls,  as  truly  and  loyally  Christian 
as  St.  Francis  or  Thomas  a  Kempis  or  William 
Booth  ? 


74  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

III 

But  now,  having  recognized  the  worth  and 
significance  of  human  history  and  human  in- 
stinct, and  the  place  which  war  has  actually 
held  as  an  instrument  of  God  for  the  working 
out  of  His  own  great  ends  in  the  experience 
of  the  race,  let  us  make  haste  to  see  the  more 
excellent  way  foreshadowed  in  the  Christian 
ideal. 

There  is  certainly  no  doubt,  despite  General 
von  Bernhardi,  that  the  Christian  principles 
of  consideration  for  others,  of  forbearance 
and  self-control,  and  even  of  self-sacrifice, 
are  capable  of  being  applied  in  the  relation  of 
nations  no  less  than  in  individuals. 

They  have  been  illustrated  many  times  in 
the  history  of  Europe  during  the  past  few 
hundred  years,  even  if  it  be  true  that  some- 
times nations  have  maintained  the  attitude 
of  forbearance  for  their  own  ends  and  as  a 
cloak  to  their  ulterior  designs.  Even  such 
concessions  bear  eloquent  witness  to  the  possi- 
bility of  a  Christian  policy. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WAR       75 

The  forbearance  of  England  in  the  Vene- 
zuelan case,  of  Canada  in  the  Fisheries 
dispute,  and  of  the  United  States  toward 
Mexico  are  all  instances  in  point. 

Many  important  and  vital  questions  have 
arisen  in  a  hundred  years  between  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States,  and  more  than 
once  relations  have  been  so  strained  that  a 
single  spark  might  have  produced  an  explosion. 
Nevertheless,  the  resolute  purpose  of  the 
national  leaders  to  find  some  way  for  the 
peaceful  solution  of  the  difficulties  has  never 
failed  to  bear  fruit,  and  only  the  conflagration 
which  broke  out  last  year  in  Europe  over- 
shadowed one  of  the  most  significant  events 
in  human  history,  —  the  celebration  of  our 
hundred  years  of  peace. 

Europe  sneered  at  our  pretense  of  dis- 
interestedness when  we  invaded  Cuba,  and 
again  when  we  intervened  a  second  time  to 
restore  order;  but  we  have  proven  our  faith 
by  our  works. 

With  all  her  history  of  militarism  and  con- 
quest, and  with  all  the  wealth   England  has 


76  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

undoubtedly  received  from  her  colonies,  his- 
tory will  bear  witness  to  the  fact  that  wherever 
she  has  gone  she  has  taken  up  the  white  man's 
burden,  and  that  the  nations  she  has  ruled 
are  the  greatest  beneficiaries  of  her  policy. 

Above  all,  who  shall  say  that  Belgium  has 
not  in  these  last  days  afforded  a  supreme 
example  of  national  self-sacrifice;  and  has 
disproven  von  Bernhardi's  doctrine  by  taking 
thereby  a  loftier  place  on  the  scroll  of  fame 
than  she  could  ever  have  achieved  by  the 
prosperous  discharge  of  the  usual  functions 
of  the  state. 

If  we  ask  how  this  ideal  of  the  Christianizing 
of  world-relations  is  to  be  attained,  there  is  no 
better  answer  than  that  of  Kant,  whose 
essay  on  "Perpetual  Peace"  remains  after  the 
lapse  of  a  hundred  years  the  profoundest 
utterance  which  has  yet  been  made  on  this 
theme. 

Kant  declared  three  things  to  be  essential 
to  a  lasting  world-peace  —  a  peace  which 
should  be  anything  more  than  a  temporary 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND     WAR       77 

intermission  in  a  state  of  perpetual  warfare. 
The  first  is  "Representative  Government"; 
the  second  is  "The  Political  Organization  of 
the  World";  and  the  third  is  "The  Spirit  of 
Hospitality." 

By  representative  government  Kant  really 
meant  what  we  have  in  mind  when  we  talk  of 
Democracy. 

Thoroughgoing  democracy,  or  the  direct 
exercise  of  the  functions  of  government  by  the 
whole  people,  he  did  not  believe  in.  He 
recognized  the  danger  of  the  mob-spirit  in 
government,  the  necessity  which  was  embodied 
in  the  American  Constitution  of  affording 
some  check  upon  popular  impulse.  He  knew 
that  the  tyranny  of  majorities  may  be  as 
oppressive  as  that  of  an  autocracy.  He  had 
no  idea  of  intrusting  the  delicate  adjustment 
of  foreign  relations  to  the  clumsy  devices  of 
popular  government. 

But  he  recognized  no  less  that  in  the  last 
analysis  the  people  do  the  fighting  and  pay 
the  bills.  He  felt  that  their  best  instincts 
are  to  be  trusted,  and  that  in  the  long  run 


78  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

they  are  more  likely  to  do  what  is  just  and 
right  than  an  irresponsible  bureaucracy  in- 
tent on  furthering  its  own  ambitions.  So  he 
insisted  that  governments  must  be  responsible 
to  the  people  and  truly  representative  of  the 
best  public  sentiment  of  the  nation  if  inter- 
national relations  are  to  be  established  on  a 
sound  basis. 

This  of  necessity  carries  with  it  the  abolition 
of  secret  diplomacy.  Not  that  a  wise  discre- 
tion must  not  be  allowed  to  the  agents  of  the 
government  in  the  conduct  of  diplomatic 
negotiations;  but  secret  treaties  and  un- 
acknowledged "gentlemen's  agreements"  be- 
tween foreign  offices  are  a  fruitful  source 
of  suspicion  and  distrust,  and  the  intrigues  of 
far-sighted  diplomats  have  more  than  once 
plunged  nations  into  needless  strife. 

Only  when  the  relation  between  states  is 
regarded  as  a  matter  of  public  concern  to  be 
settled  in  the  open,  with  all  the  cards  on  the 
table,  can  the  people  be  assured  that  their 
true  interests  are  being  served. 

The  wisest  students  of  public  affairs  are 


THE    CHRISTIAN   AND    WAR        79 

agreed  that  this  is  not  the  least  important 
lesson  to  be  learned  from  the  present  conflict 
in  Europe,  and  that  only  by  increasing  the 
responsibility  of  the  governments  to  the 
popular  conscience  and  will  can  the  founda- 
tions be  laid  for  a  lasting  peace. 

Kant's  second  maxim  finds  expression  to-day 
in  the  various  schemes  which  are  proposed 
for  an  international  tribunal  for  the  settle- 
ment of  disputes,  —  with  or  without  an  armed 
power  to  enforce  its  decrees. 

We  have  already  seen  the  necessity  for  this. 
Hitherto  there  has  been  no  court  of  last  resort, 
such  as  the  state  itself  affords  for  its  citizens 
in  their  disputes,  save  that  of  the  sword. 

Kant  was  emphatically  opposed  to  a  "world- 
state,"  as  destroying  the  sovereignty  which  is 
the  very  life  of  every  state;  but  he  saw  as 
clearly  as  any  one  the  necessity  for  some  sort 
of  machinery  for  the  peaceful  adjustment  of 
international  relations.  Conflicts  of  interest 
are  bound  to  arise.  Justice  must  be  assured 
and  the  interests  of  neutral  states,  the  "inno- 
cent bystanders,"  must  be  safeguarded. 


80  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

Since  Kant's  time  two  types  of  federated 
government  have  been  worked  out  in  human 
experience. 

The  American  Union,  which  in  his  day  had 
not  emerged  from  the  experimental  state,  is  an 
actual  government,  a  super-sovereignty  over 
sovereign  states,  such  as  Kant  himself  opposed. 

It  is  becoming  increasingly  evident  in  the 
United  States  that  under  the  conditions  of 
modern  life  the  tendency  in  such  a  federation 
is  for  the  sovereignty  of  the  individual  states 
to  be  more  and  more  absorbed  in  the  power 
of  the  central  government.  The  Civil  War 
proved  that  the  Union  is  no  mechanical 
mixture  but  an  organic  unity,  and  the  tend- 
ency of  the  last  twenty  years  has  been  to 
increase  the  centralized  authority  of  the 
Federal  Government.  Nevertheless  the  peo- 
ple at  large  are  fairly  satisfied  to  have  it  so, 
and  the  interests  of  all  are  in  the  main  pretty 
thoroughly  safeguarded. 

But  the  Civil  War  also  proves  that  such  a 
league  of  peace  may  break  down  under  the 
stress  of  peculiar  circumstances,  and  it  may 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WAR        81 

well  be  that  while  it  works  admirably  in  the 
case  of  a  homogeneous  people  it  would  not  be 
adapted  to  the  case  of  nations  so  diverse  in 
language  and  customs  and  interests  as  the 
peoples  of  the  old  world. 

The  other  type  of  a  federated  government 
is  to  be  found  in  the  British  Empire. 

Here  the  central  government  exercises  but 
the  remotest  shadow  of  authority.  Canada 
and  Australia  and  South  Africa  are  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  independent  nations,  ex- 
ercising all  the  rights  of  sovereignty,  includ- 
ing those  of  setting  up  tariff  barriers  and 
coining  their  own  money,  —  powers  forbidden 
to  the  American  states. 

To  the  casual  observer  the  bond  which 
holds  the  British  Empire  together  is  a  rope  of 
sand,  and  the  greatest  surprise  of  the  present 
war  to  Germany  was  the  fact  the  colonies 
remained  loyal  to  the  mother  country  and 
furnished  troops  and  munitions  of  war  in  the 
crisis.  Even  yet  German  statesmen  can 
scarcely  be  convinced  that  if  the  struggle 
should  be  prolonged,  Canada  or  India  would 


82  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

not  get  out  from  under  the  burden  and  leave 
the  Empire  to  her  fate. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  nothing  holds  the  British 
Empire  together  but  sentiment.  If  England 
should  attempt  to  exercise  a  real  authority 
over  her  colonies,  she  would  lose  them  in  a 
day,  —  as  no  one  knows  better  than  England 
herself.  She  learned  her  lesson  in  1776, 
and  is  not  likely  to  make  the  same  mistake 
again. 

But  the  very  weakness  of  the  empire  is  its 
strength.  The  one  thing  that  statesmen  are 
slowest  to  learn  is  that  sentiment  is  the 
mightiest  factor  in  human  affairs.  The 
British  Empire  is  nothing  in  the  world  but 
an  Arbitration  League  between  great  states, 
who  for  the  sake  of  sentiment  have  agreed 
that  they  will  not  go  to  war  with  each  other 
under  any  circumstances,  but  will  find  some 
way  of  adjusting  their  mutual  interest  at 
all  costs. 

This  suggests  that  after  all  the  most  im- 
portant of  Kant's  maxims  is  the  third;  namely, 
that  of  "Hospitality. "     It  is  for  this  reason 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WAR       83 

that  we  have  ventured  to  introduce  this  dis- 
cussion of  method  into  a  study  of  essential 
Christianity ;  for  this  is  nothing  less  than  the 
application  of  Christian  principles  to  inter- 
national affairs. 

What  Kant  meant  by  " hospitality"  is 
that  nations  must  learn  to  rid  themselves  of 
race  hatred  and  suspicion;  that  they  must 
come  to  trust  each  other,  and  to  subordinate 
their  selfish  impulses  in  the  interest  of  peace 
and  mutual  welfare. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  there  are  no  irrecon- 
cilable interests  between  civilized  states. 
France  and  England  are  hereditary  enemies. 
They  have  fought  each  other  from  Crecy  to 
Waterloo.  Yet  to-day  they  are  fighting  side 
by  side.     It  is  not  many  years  since  Kipling 

wrote, 

"  Make  ye  no  truce  with  Adam-Zad, 
The  Bear  that  walks  like  a  man.'* 

Russia  was  at  that  time  regarded  as  England's 
most  dangerous  rival,  both  in  the  Near  and 
the  Far  East.  The  Crimean  War  was  fought 
to  prevent  her  from  securing  Constantinople. 


84  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

Now  England  sees  no  objection  to  such  an 
event.  All  these  traditional  difficulties  have 
been  adjusted,  and  Germany  has  become  the 
bete  noire  in  the  path  of  world-peace.  To- 
morrow may  witness  a  new  alignment. 

When  men  have  come  to  see  the  absurdity 
of  all  this,  and  have  realized  the  essential 
solidarity  of  human  interests  in  a  world  as 
compact  and  genuinely  organic  as  this  we 
live  in  has  come  to  be,  then  we  shall  begin  to 
apply  the  Christian  principles  of  forbearance 
and  mutual  good  will  to  international  af- 
fairs, and  the  swords  will  be  beaten  into 
plowshares. 

It  is  evident  that  this  Christianizing  of 
national  life,  of  the  State-Person  in  its  rela- 
tions with  its  peers,  must  be  a  fruit  of  the 
growing  Christianization  of  public  opinion. 

As  individuals  grow  more  Christian  in  their 
relations  with  each  other,  and  their  moral 
insight  becomes  correspondingly  quickened, 
the  field  of  international  relations  must 
inevitably  be  brought  more  and  more  under 
the  dominion  of  the  Christian  ideal. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WAR        85 

It  is  doubtless  a  far  cry  to  the  consumma- 
tion of  this  hope;  but  as  the  spirit  of  Jesus 
Christ  takes  an  ever  deeper  hold  on  the  hearts 
of  men,  they  will  not  forever  be  content  with 
war's  crude  and  wasteful  method  of  attain- 
ing international  justice,  but  will  strive  more 
and  more  for  a  common  understanding  and 
mutual  good  will  among  the  nations  of  the 
earth. 

It  is  objected  to  this  hope  that  the  warlike 
virtues  of  courage  and  self-sacrifice  are  among 
the  greatest  treasures  of  the  human  spirit, 
and  that  the  abolition  of  war  will  reduce  man- 
kind to  the  flabby  bourgeois  virtues  of  pros- 
perity and  ease. 

The  answer  is  found  in  all  the  glorious 
history  of  spiritual  sacrifice.  The  sisters  of 
charity  who  spend  their  lives  in  the  service  of 
the  poor;  the  humble  missionaries  who  pour 
out  their  souls  without  stint  in  behalf  of  the 
needy  inhabitants  of  the  dark  places  of  the 
world ;  the  martyrs  of  science,  the  heroes  of 
industry,  and   the  innumerable  multitude  of 


86  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

earnest  spirits  in  every  age  who  count  not 
their  lives  dear  unto  themselves  that  they 
may  be  of  service  to  their  fellow  men  and 
establish  the  kingdom  of  righteousness  unto 
the  ends  of  the  earth,  are  sufficient  witness 
to  the  spiritual  resources  of  the  race. 

While  the  earth  stands  there  will  never 
be  a  time  when  men  will  not  be  called  upon 
to  sacrifice  themselves  for  righteousness'  sake. 
The  Cross  will  not  die  out  of  human  experi- 
ence, nor  need  we  fear  that  it  will  ever  become 
an  easy  thing  in  this  world  to  do  right. 

The  physical  heroism  which  faces  death  at 
the  cannon's  mouth  makes  a  far  less  demand 
upon  the  resources  of  the  human  soul  than 
the  spiritual  courage  required  of  him  who 
will  follow  Jesus  Christ  in  a  world  of  sin  and 
spiritual  conflict. 

"Peace?     When  have  we  prayed  for  peace? 

Is  there  no  wrong  to  right  ? 
Wrong  crying  to  God  on  high 
Here  where  the  weak  and  the  helpless  die, 
And  the  homeless  hordes  of  the  city  go  by, 

The  ranks  are  rallied  to-night ! 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WAR       87 

Peace  ?     When  have  we  prayed  for  peace  ? 

Are  ye  so  dazed  with  words  ? 
Earth,  heaven  shall  pass  away 
Ere  for  your  passionless  peace  we  pray  ! 
Are  ye  deaf  to  the  trumpets  that  call  us  to-day, 

Blind  to  the  blazing  swords  ?  " 

—  Alfred  Noyes. 


IV 

THE   CHRISTIAN  AND  WEALTH 

The  problem  of  war  holds  the  central  place 
in  all  our  thinking  just  now  by  reason  of  the 
terrible  holocaust  which  has  overtaken 
Europe,  but  it  is  not  the  most  fundamental 
ethical  problem  of  mankind. 

The  root  cause  of  war  is  undoubtedly  the 
desire  of  the  strong  to  exploit  the  weak. 
Indeed  a  recent  German  economist  and  his- 
torian goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  the  political 
organization  of  mankind  into  states  had  its 
rise  historically  in  the  desire  of  a  vigorous 
and  predatory  group  to  take  possession  of 
the  products  of  toil  of  a  weaker  or  less  aggres- 
sive people. 

The  fundamental  problem  of  human  civili- 
zation is  that  of  the  production  and  distribu- 
tion of  goods.  If  Christianity  is  to  afford 
the    constructive    principles    upon    which  the 

88 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WEALTH     89 

highest  human  welfare  must  rest,  it  is  neces- 
sary for  us  to  ask  what  Christianity  has  to 
say  on  the  economic  problem. 

Practically  the  question  assumes  this  form, 
Can  a  Christian  hold  wealth?  or  to  state  the 
question  more  broadly,  Is  Christianity  com- 
patible with  a  social  order  in  which  men  are 
divided  into  rich  and  poor  ? 

Here  again  we  are  met  at  the  outset  with 
a  confusion  of  tongues,  evidencing  a  very 
general  confusion  of  thought. 

On  the  one  hand,  there  are  those  who  de- 
clare that  Jesus  was  a  Socialist;  that  he 
believed  in  the  abolition  of  private  property, 
or  even  that  he  would  have  all  things  held  in 
common;  that  his  doctrine  forbids  every 
form  and  degree  of  wealth  and  enjoins  ab- 
solute poverty  and  the  refusal  to  make  pro- 
vision for  the  future. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  those  who  argue 
that  the  institution  of  private  property  is  so 
embedded  in  his  teaching  that  his  whole  ethical 
system  falls  to  the  ground  if  the  economic  struc- 
ture of  society  should  be  materially  changed. 


90  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

If  we  turn  from  attempts  to  interpret  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  in  a  thoroughgoing  way 
and  look  at  the  spontaneous  practical  atti- 
tude of  men  toward  that  teaching,  we  find 
the  same  confusion. 

On  the  one  hand,  there  is  a  widespread 
feeling  that  riches  are  incompatible  with 
Christianity,  and  that  the  church  has  be- 
trayed her  Lord  by  the  deference  she  has 
paid  to  wealth  and  power ;  on  the  other  hand, 
there  are  a  great  number  of  well-to-do  and 
rich  in  the  church  who  are  conscious  of  no 
inconsistency  between  their  religion  and  their 
business  life. 

On  the  one  hand,  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  is 
held  up  as  the  typical  Christian.  On  the 
other  hand,  Mr.  Rockefeller  is  admired  as 
the  type  of  a  successful  combination  of  busi- 
ness efficiency  and  spiritual  character. 


Again  we  turn  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
to  see  if  it  affords  any  clear  light  upon  this 
crucial  problem  of  human  life. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WEALTH     91 

Once  more  we  find  the  same  apparent  con- 
tradiction when  we  undertake  to  interpret 
him  literally. 

The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  declares  that  no 
man  can  serve  God  and  Mammon,  and  bids 
men  lay  up  their  treasures  in  heaven  rather 
than  on  earth.  It  tells  them  to  take  no 
thought  for  the  morrow,  but  to  live  as  the 
birds  who  have  neither  storehouse  nor  barn. 

When  the  rich  young  ruler  came  to  Jesus 
declaring  that  he  had  kept  the  command- 
ments from  his  youth  up  and  asking  what 
further  duty  was  laid  upon  him  that  he  might 
enter  the  Kingdom  of  God,  Jesus  told  him 
to  sell  all  that  he  had  and  give  to  the  poor. 

He  declared  that  it  was  easier  for  a  camel 
to  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle  than  for  a 
rich  man  to  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  God; 
and  this  needle's  eye  was  not  a  hypothetical 
door  in  the  wall  of  Jerusalem  so  small  that 
camels  could  get  through  only  by  being 
stripped  of  their  packs  and  getting  down  on 
their  knees.  This  gate  existed  only  in  the 
imagination    of    commentators    who    wanted 


92  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

to  save  the  literal  interpretation  of  Jesus's 
words  and  still  leave  some  loophole  for  their 
rich  patrons.  Jesus  meant  a  needle's  eye, 
and  the  form  of  the  statement  declares  the 
utter  impossibility  of  a  rich  man  being  saved. 

Jesus's  own  practice  conformed  to  this  teach- 
ing. He  held  no  property;  he  depended  for 
his  living  on  the  generosity  of  his  disciples,  and 
the  little  group  who  traveled  with  him  had  a 
common  purse  and  lived  from  hand  to  mouth. 

The  church  at  Jerusalem  after  his  death 
apparently  followed  the  same  principle.  Its 
members  sold  their  property  and  turned  the 
proceeds  into  the  common  treasury.  They 
gave  themselves  up  to  the  service  of  worship 
and  praise  and  the  proclamation  of  the  Chris- 
tian truth,  and  took  no  thought  for  business. 

So  far  the  case  seems  to  be  clear  for  the 
absolute  demand  for  poverty  if  one  will  be  a 
loyal  follower  of  Jesus. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  Jesus  accepted  the 
proposition  of  Zacchaeus  to  give  half  of  his 
goods  to  the  poor  and  to  restore  fourfold 
to  any  man  whom  he  had  wronged. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND     WEALTH     93 

When  Nicodemus  came  to  inquire  the  way 
of  life,  Jesus  said  not  a  single  word  about 
his  property,  but  simply  told  him  he  would 
have  to  have  a  new  spirit  and  attitude 
toward  life  if  he  would  enter  the  Kingdom 
of  God. 

The  Apostles  themselves  left  their  homes 
to  become  companions  of  Jesus;  but  they 
did  not  surrender  their  property,  and  after 
the  resurrection  Peter  and  his  friends  went 
back  to  their  fishing  nets  until  the  new  call 
sent  them  out  to  spend  their  lives  in  proclaim- 
ing the  gospel. 

The  little  family  at  Bethany  whose  friend- 
ship meant  so  much  to  Jesus  seem  to  have 
been  in  comfortable  circumstances ;  and  one 
of  Jesus's  friends  at  least  had  a  house  in 
Jerusalem  much  larger  than  the  majority  of 
the  houses,  since  it  had  an  upper  room  fur- 
nished where  the  Master  might  eat  the 
Passover  with  his  Disciples. 

Even  during  the  communistic  period  of 
the  early  church  in  Jerusalem,  as  we  have 
seen,  there  was  no  requirement  that  its  mem- 


94  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

bers  should  sell  their  property  for  the  common 
fund ;  and  Ananias  and  Sapphira  were 
punished  not  for  keeping  back  part  of  their 
wealth,  but  for  pretending  they  had  given 
all  when  they  had  not.  Outside  of  Jerusalem 
there  is  no  trace  of  the  practice  of  com- 
munism; and  after  the  first  few  years  the 
Jerusalem  saints,  having  given  up  all  their 
property,  became  a  perpetual  burden  upon 
the  other  churches  throughout  the  Empire 
and  were  supported  by  collections  taken  in 
Rome  and  Macedonia. 

In  point  of  fact  we  find  here,  as  we  have 
found  before,  that  there  is  no  hope  in  literal- 
ism; that  the  demands  of  Jesus  are  not 
susceptible  of  being  reduced  to  simple,  hard 
and  fast  rules  which  draw  a  sharp  line  of 
demarcation  through  human  life,  on  the  one 
side  of  which  lies  duty  and  on  the  other  side 
disaster. 

In  some  instances,  his  requirement  was  due 
to  the  peculiarities  of  an  individual  case;  to 
some  extent,  it  was  governed  by  the  general 
conditions  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived;    to 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WEALTH     95 

some  extent,  he  employed  in  this  connection 
the  same  method  of  paradox  which  we  found 
so  arresting  and  thought-compelling  in  other 
directions. 

St.  Francis  of  Assisi  accepted  literally  the 
injunction  of  Jesus  to  sell  all  and  give  to  the 
poor.  The  policy  did  not  prove  successful 
or  capable  of  wide  application  in  St.  Francis's 
own  experience,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we 
honor  him  for  the  sweetness  of  his  spirit,  for 
the  greatness  of  his  love,  and  for  his  unshrink- 
ing loyalty  to  the  truth  as  he  understood  it, 
rather  than  for  his  specific  example  in  this 
connection. 

Origen  of  Alexandria  in  the  third  century 
carried  out  literally  the  suggestion  of  Jesus 
that  some  men  are  called  to  become  eunuchs 
for  the  Kingdom  of  God ;  but  the  good  sense 
of  the  church  has  even  from  his  own  day 
repudiated  such  extreme  measures,  and  has 
believed  that  the  practice  of  celibacy  ful- 
filled the  most  extreme  requirement  in  the 
mind  of  Jesus.  If  this  saying  is  to  be  inter- 
preted   by    common    sense    and    Origen    was 


96  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

wrong  in  his  interpretation  though  splendidly 
loyal  in  his  obedience,  it  is  possible  that  the 
same  is  true  of  St.  Francis. 

It  is  true  that  Jesus  was  not  an  economist. 
He  was  not  concerned  with  the  problems  of 
statecraft  or  of  business,  with  laying  down 
the  scientific  laws  which  govern  the  economic 
realm.  He  refused  to  be  a  judge  or  divider. 
When  appealed  to  regarding  the  lawfulness 
of  paying  tribute  to  Caesar,  he  simply  told 
the  Jews  that  so  long  as  they  accepted  Caesar's 
money,  they  were  under  obligations  to  Caesar. 
He  refused  to  discuss  the  political  principle, 
but  made  clear  the  moral  obligation. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  ethical 
principles  of  Jesus  are  susceptible  of  wide 
application  in  the  political  and  no  less  in  the 
economic  field,  but  we  are  left  to  discover 
for  ourselves  what  those  applications  may  be. 
Broadly  speaking,  anything  which  in  the 
long  run  is  true  statecraft  is  Christian,  and 
will  be  found  to  rest  upon  the  ethical  princi- 
ples laid  down  by  Christ.  In  like  manner, 
anything  which  proves  ultimately  to  be  sound 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WEALTH     97 

economic  practice  cannot  be  inconsistent  with 
the  Christian  teaching. 

But  the  discovery  and  application  of  the 
Christian  principle  to  the  economic  field  is 
to  be  made  not  through  slavish  submission 
to  the  letter  either  of  Jesus's  teaching  or  his 
practice;  but  by  the  broad  understanding 
of  his  moral  purpose  in  the  light  of  experience. 

II 

Turning,  therefore,  from  the  attempt  to 
find  in  the  words  of  Jesus  a  clear  and  well- 
defined  rule  for  Christian  practice,  and  apply- 
ing once  more  our  principle  of  sanctified 
common  sense  to  the  interpretation  of  his 
teaching,  we  find  a  good  many  things  which 
throw  light  on  our  problem  and  which  sug- 
gest certain  general  principles  which  if  carried 
out  in  human  life  would  lead  the  world  in  the 
direction  of  a  stable  social  order. 

To  begin  with,  there  are  a  number  of  things 
in  the  practice  and  teaching  of  Jesus  which 
bear  directly  on  the  problem  of  wealth. 


98  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

In  the  first  place,  Jesus  displayed,  both  in 
his  practice  and  in  his  teaching,  a  virtual  in- 
difference to  wealth.  He  tried  to  make  men 
see  that  there  are  so  many  things  of  greater 
importance  that  it  is  a  waste  of  life  to  spend 
it  upon  the  acquisition  of  property.  The 
pursuit  of  truth,  the  building  of  character, 
the  practice  of  the  spirit  of  helpfulness,  — 
these  are  the  aims  which  should  absorb  the 
soul  and  which  leave  small  room  for  greed. 

Agassiz,  the  great  American  naturalist, 
was  once  offered  $700  a  night  for  a  course 
of  lectures;  but  he  replied,  "I  haven't  time 
to  make  money,"  and  he  kept  on  teaching 
natural  science  to  undergraduates  for  a  small 
salary,  too  absorbed  in  the  discovery  and 
proclamation  of  truth  to  care  whether  he 
made  money  or  not. 

John  Wesley  was  no  ascetic  and  had  little 
in  common  with  St.  Francis,  but  when  the 
taxgatherer,  supposing  that  so  famous  a 
man  as  Mr.  Wesley  must  be  living  in  corre- 
sponding style,  wrote  to  him  to  say  that  he 
had  not  made  return  of  his  silver  plate,  Mr. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WEALTH     99 

Wesley  replied,  "I  had  overlooked  the  matter ; 
I  have  two  silver  spoons,  —  one  in  London 
and  one  in  Bristol ;  that  is  all  the  silver  plate 
I  expect  to  possess  while  so  many  in  England 
are  starving  for  bread." 

This  is  the  working  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus 
in  human  life. 

In  the  next  place,  Jesus  plainly  recognized 
and  declared  the  snare  of  riches. 

He  saw  how  luxury  and  ease  tend  to  under- 
mine the  moral  character  and  to  unfit  men 
for  strenuous  moral  effort.  He  knew  how 
easy  it  is  for  mankind  to  become  the  slaves 
instead  of  the  masters  of  their  possessions; 
to  become  so  entangled  with  things  that  they 
are  no  longer  masters  of  themselves  or  of 
the  conditions  of  their  life.  He  knew  that 
wealth  breeds  power,  and  power  tends  to 
make  men  hard  and  tyrannical.  It  was  for 
this  reason  that  he  was  continually  warning 
men  against  the  snare  of  wealth.  It  is  the 
care  of  the  world  and  the  deceitfulness  of 
riches  that  choke  the  word  of  truth  and 
make   it    unfruitful.     It    is   the   worship    of 


100  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

Mammon  which  crowds  God  out  of  the  human 
heart. 

One  of  the  most  heart-gripping  of  the  par- 
ables of  Jesus  is  the  story  of  that  man  whose 
wealth  accumulated  till  he  knew  not  what 
to  do  with  it,  and  he  said,  "I  will  build 
larger  storehouses  and  there  I  will  bestow  this 
great  wealth,  and  I  will  say  to  my  soul,  '  Thou 
hast  much  goods  laid  up  for  many  years  — 
take  thine  ease,  eat,  drink  and  be  merry,'  " 
and  God  said  unto  him,  "Thou  fool!" 

King  Midas  was  gifted  with  the  power  to 
turn  everything  he  touched  into  gold,  and  his 
heart  rejoiced,  but  the  reeds  by  the  riverside 
whispered,  "King  Midas  has  ass's  ears"; 
for  the  rose  he  plucked,  the  wine  he  drank, 
the  lips  of  the  child  he  kissed  all  turned  to 
gold,  and  the  king  realized  the  utter  folly 
that  mistakes  the  true  riches  and  seeks  only 
material  gain. 

Moreover,  Jesus  emphatically  taught  the 
necessity  of  getting  rid  of  anything  in  life 
which  has  become  a  snare  of  the  soul.  Better 
be  blind  and  maimed  than  to  be  led  by  sight 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WEALTH     101 

and  touch  into  actions  which  destroy  the 
soul.  Better  far  that  a  man  be  poor  and 
engaged  in  a  daily  struggle  for  existence  than 
that  his  soul  should  be  degraded  into  a  money- 
bag and  his  whole  life  grow  flabby  and  mon- 
strous, lapped  around  with  luxury. 

Also  the  general  principles  of  Jesus,  his 
supreme  doctrines  of  love  and  service,  have 
an  important  bearing  on  the  problem  of 
wealth. 

In  the  first  place,  they  demand  the  loftiest 
integrity. 

It  does  not  require  a  wide  experience  of 
life  to  realize  that  absolute  and  unflinching 
honesty  is  not  often  the  pathway  to  great 
wealth.  We  do  not  mean  that  all  riches  are 
dishonestly  acquired,  but  the  investigations 
and  revelations  of  the  last  few  years  in 
America,  and  the  perpetual  struggle  against 
graft  and  chicane  in  which  we  are  engaged, 
give  ground  for  the  suspicion  that  most 
wealth  is  tainted  money. 

We  may  not  go  as  far  as  Oppenheimer,  the 


102  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

historian  to  whom  we  referred,  who  de- 
clares that  the  state  itself  had  its  origin  in 
the  desire  to  get  something  for  nothing  and 
to  enjoy  the  possession  of  wealth  earned  by 
the  labor  of  others;  but  there  is  a  growing 
feeling  on  the  part  of  all  sober  and  intelli- 
gent students  of  human  life  that  if  the  prin- 
ciples of  absolute  integrity  were  applied  to 
the  business  world,  it  would  cut  deep  into  our 
great  fortunes  and  insure  a  much  wider  dis- 
tribution of  the  products  of  industry. 

Jesus  also  insists  that  the  ruling  principle 
in  life  must  be  that  of  service. 

Economically,  this  means  that  the  em- 
phasis in  business  must  be  not  upon  profits 
but  upon  the  service  of  human  need. 

Whether  an  element  of  profit  is  necessary 
in  order  to  make  business  possible  is  a  ques- 
tion for  economics  to  settle,  but  it  is  un- 
doubtedly true  that  hitherto  the  accent  has 
been  on  the  wrong  syllable.  Business  has 
been  conducted  for  profit,  and  the  service 
was  incidental.  The  tendency,  therefore,  has 
been  to  increase  the  profit  to  the  largest  de- 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WEALTH     103 

gree  which  the  traffic  will  bear,  and  to  reduce 
the  service  to  the  minimum  which  the  public 
will  stand. 

The  change  of  emphasis  which  is  being  in- 
sisted upon  by  the  growing  demand  of  public 
sentiment  in  its  relation  to  all  the  business  of 
the  world  is  directly  in  line  with  the  Christian 
principle. 

The  law  of  love  must  further  be  applied  to 
the  whole  field  of  the  production  of  wealth. 

Men  have  been  very  slow  to  realize  this 
truth.  Human  slavery  persisted  for  eight- 
een centuries  after  Christ,  and  it  is  but  little 
more  than  fifty  years  since  the  Chief  Justice  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  de- 
clared that  the  black  man  had  no  rights  which 
the  white  man  was  bound  to  respect.  We  are 
still  prone  to  interpret  business  purely  in  the 
terms  of  economic  cost  and  profit,  and  are 
slow  to  measure  the  human  factors  involved. 

Of  all  the  children  in  the  United  States 
between  the  ages  of  thirteen  and  sixteen,  one 
in  six  is  a  wage  earner,  and  there  are  whole 
industries  in  which  the  weight  rests  on  the 


104  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

shoulders  of  women  and  children.  We  are 
coming  to  see  that  this  must  not  be ;  that 
economics  must  be  interpreted  in  the  terms 
of  humanity;  that  the  cost  of  a  shirt  waist 
is  not  the  sum  paid  for  the  material  and  the 
labor  employed  in  making  it,  but  the  priva- 
tion and  suffering  and  moral  risk  run  by  the 
seamstress  in  her  garret  and  the  shopgirl  in 
the  department  store. 

Men  have  always  applied  the  test  of  Chris- 
tianity in  a  general  way  to  the  possession  of 
wealth  and  have  asked  of  the  rich  man, 
Where  did  he  get  it?  The  San  Francisco 
millionaire,  the  foundations  of  whose  fortune 
were  laid  by  stage  robbery,  knows  that  if 
that  were  discovered,  he  would  suffer  in  public 
esteem. 

Within  the  last  few  years,  the  world  has 
come  to  feel  that  a  fortune  made  in  beer  and 
whisky  is  tainted  money  —  though  we  ordi- 
narily distinguish  between  the  money  made 
by  selling  liquor  over  the  bar  and  that  made 
through  the  possession  of  brewery  or  distillery 
stock. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WEALTH     105 

But  some  day  we  shall  understand  that 
every  dollar  of  wealth  in  the  world  has  been 
paid  for  by  human  cost,  by  toil  of  heart  and 
brain  and  hand;  and  that  wherever  the 
conditions  of  its  production  have  dwarfed 
the  lives  and  imperiled  the  souls  of  those 
whose  toil  created  it,  it  is  stained  with  blood. 

The  most  alarming  thing  which  I  have 
read  in  years  was  the  admission  made  by  the 
younger  Mr.  Rockefeller  before  the  Indus- 
trial Commission  not  long  ago,  that  he  knew 
nothing  whatever  about  the  labor  problem. 
Mr.  Morgan,  son  and  successor  of  the  money 
king  of  the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  said 
essentially  the  same  thing  a  few  days  later. 

Here  are  two  men  who  control  and  ad- 
minister hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars. 
Their  wealth  is  employed  in  many  industries; 
it  buys  the  labor  of  millions  of  their  fellow 
human  beings ;  yet  they  frankly  admit  that 
they  are  concerned  only  with  the  cash  profit 
on  their  investments,  and  that  they  know 
absolutely  nothing  about  the  conditions  under 
which  those  profits  are  made. 


106  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

That  is  an  awful  thing  to  say.  These 
men  have  no  right  not  to  know  the  labor 
problem.  They  are  directly  responsible  for 
the  bodies  and  souls  of  millions  of  men,  with 
their  wives  and  children.  If  it  is  impossible 
for  the  bankers  who  control  the  industries 
of  our  day  to  understand  and  be  responsible 
for  the  labor  conditions  under  which  their 
wealth  is  created,  then  the  foundations  are 
laid  for  the  greatest  revolution  in  human 
history.  For  in  the  name  of  humanity, 
society  must  wrest  from  these  men  the  con- 
trol of  human  industry  in  order  that  it  may 
be  administered  intelligently  in  the  interest 
of  mankind. 

The  tyranny  of  six  per  cent  must  be  over- 
thrown. This  world  does  not  exist  for  the 
sake  of  wealth,  but  for  the  sake  of  folks ; 
and  it  is  an  intolerable  thing  that  the  control 
of  human  lives  should  be  vested  in  young  men 
who  have  no  interest  in  or  knowledge  of  the 
fundamental  human  problem. 

Finally,  the  law  of  love  and  service  governs 
the  use  that  shall  be  made  of  one's  wealth. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WEALTH     107 

All  men  are  trustees  of  society  for  their 
possessions. 

The  world  has  made  great  progress  in  this 
direction  in  the  last  hundred  years.  It  has 
come  to  pass  that  multi-millionaires  maintain 
toward  the  world  a  somewhat  apologetic  at- 
titude, as  though  they  were  half -ashamed  of 
their  wealth.  Mr.  Carnegie  declared  a  few 
years  ago  that  it  is  a  disgrace  for  a  man  to 
die  rich,  and  he  has  been  exhausting  his  in- 
genuity in  devising  methods  of  disposing  of 
his  wealth  in  ways  that  shall  be  most  useful 
to  mankind.  It  was  said  the  other  day  that 
the  benefactions  of  Mr.  Rockefeller  have 
amounted  to  a  quarter  of  a  billion ;  and  the 
most  miserly  business  man  of  the  last  gener- 
ation, Russell  Sage,  left  at  his  death  his 
entire  fortune  to  be  distributed  for  the  public 
good. 

We  do  not  always  realize,  however,  that 
the  principle  holds  good  for  the  man  whose 
wealth  is  counted  in  hundreds  or  thousands  no 
less  than  for  him  whose  fortune  numbers  mil- 
lions.    Whatever  we  have,  we  have  not  for 


108  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

ourselves,  to   employ  for   selfish   ends ;    but 
we  hold  it  in  trust  for  our  neighbor. 

Ill 

In  all  this  we  have  been  anticipating  the 
application  of  the  principles  of  Jesus  to  the 
conditions  of  modern  life. 

If  the  law  of  integrity  must  be  expanded 
into  a  recognition  of  the  right  of  labor  to  a 
larger  share  in  the  profits  and  the  right  of 
the  public  to  more  efficient  service;  and  if 
the  law  of  love  must  be  held  to  govern  the 
production  of  wealth  no  less  than  its  use, 
then  Christianity  is  bound  to  cut  deep  into 
the  historic  social  order. 

Christianity  plainly  sets  itself  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  economic  interpretation  of  life. 

It  insists  that  not  the  production  of  wealth 
is  the  chief  aim  nor  the  ruling  motive  in  human 
history,  but  the  production  of  manhood,  — 
however  important  the  economic  factor  may 
have  been,  and  however  necessary  it  may  be  to 
take  it  into  account  in  any  attempt  either  to 
explain  the  past  or  to  control  the  future. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WEALTH     109 

The  economic  life  is  concerned  only  with 
producing  the  material  for  living.  Chris- 
tianity is  the  assertion  of  the  supremacy  of 
the  spirit  over  the  flesh,  of  manhood  over 
material  possessions. 

It  protests  against  the  tyranny  of  things. 
It  bids  men  free  themselves  from  the  entangle- 
ment of  worldly  possessions ;  to  be  too  great 
of  soul  and  too  high  of  purpose  to  go  forever 
bound  to  the  satisfaction  of  their  physical 
wants.  It  is  better  that  a  man  should  know 
truth  and  feed  his  soul  on  beauty  and  stretch 
himself  in  aspiration  after  unattainable  ideals 
than  that  he  should  be  a  well-fed  and  pam- 
pered animal,  forever  in  bondage  to  food  and 
clothing  and  his  physical  body. 

In  particular  Christianity  sets  itself  in 
opposition  to  luxury  and  self-indulgence.  It 
protests  against  the  senseless  extravagance 
which  spends  its  life  in  mere  social  display 
and  misses  all  the  worth-while  ends  of 
human  existence.  Monkey  dinners  at  New- 
port, balls  at  which  the  refreshments  cost 
hundreds  of  dollars  per  plate,  and  all  of  that 


110  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

sort  of  thing,  stand  forever  condemned  by 
the  simple  appeal  of  Christianity  for  moral 
heroism  and  spiritual  worth. 

Thus  Christianity  recognizes  the  necessity 
of  adjusting  oneself  to  existing  social  and 
economic  conditions,  and  lays  down  princi- 
ples by  which  men  are  to  be  governed  under 
all  conditions. 

If  the  Christian  man  is  born  to  the  posses- 
sion of  wealth,  Christianity  does  not  require 
him  of  necessity  to  rid  himself  of  his  wealth ; 
but  it  bids  him  be  bigger  than  his  money,  to 
refuse  to  become  a  slave  to  it,  to  maintain 
his  spiritual  life  and  freedom  in  spite  of  it,  to 
regard  it  as  a  means  rather  than  as  an  end 
in  itself,  and  to  use  it  not  for  selfish  indulgence 
but  for  the  service  of  his  fellow  men. 

If  the  Christian  man  finds  himself  in  a 
social  order  where  the  exercise  of  his  gifts  of 
mind  and  heart  lead  to  the  possession  of 
wealth,  Christianity  has  no  word  of  condem- 
nation for  him;  but  bids  him  maintain  his 
integrity,    to   sacrifice  his  economic  interests 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WEALTH     111 

unhesitatingly  whenever  they  come  in  con- 
flict with  the  demands  of  the  soul,  to  put  the 
largest  possible  degree  of  Christian  considera- 
tion and  brotherhood  into  his  business  life, 
and  to  employ  the  wealth  which  he  has  thus 
acquired  in  whatever  way  shall  contribute 
most  to  the  well-being  of  humanity. 

But  when  all  this  is  said,  it  remains  true 
that  the  application  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
even  in  its  broadest  principles  to  the  economic 
life  of  the  world  tends  utterly  to  transform 
it,  to  change  its  emphasis  from  economic  suc- 
cess to  human  service. 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that  when  this 
influence  has  had  its  perfect  work,  the  result 
will  be  a  transformation  of  the  economic  life 
of  man  as  thoroughgoing  and  complete  as 
has  already  been  brought  about  in  the  politi- 
cal world  in  the  transition  from  a  centralized 
imperial  authority  to  democracy. 

If  Christianity  requires  that  human  costs 
be  considered  as  of  paramount  importance 
in  the  production  of  wealth,  if  it  insists  no 
less  upon  absolute  justice  in  the  distribution 


112  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

of  the  products  of  industry,  if  it  enthrones 
human  values  in  all  the  relations  of  men  with 
each  other,  it  means  sooner  or  later  the  aboli- 
tion of  poverty  and  no  less  the  abolition  of 
great  wealth. 

Christianity  does  not  mean  the  mechanical 
leveling  of  human  society.  It  recognizes 
diversities  of  gifts  and  capacities,  and  it  is 
entirely  compatible  with  a  distribution  of 
wealth  which  is  proportionate  to  the  varying 
contributions  men  make  to  the  world's  life 
by  reason  of  this  human  diversity.  None 
the  less  a  world  thoroughly  Christianized  will 
be  a  world  which  no  longer  rests  the  weight 
of  the  social  structure  upon  the  mud-sills 
of  economic  slavery  and  degradation. 

It  is  the  ultimate  aim  of  Christianity  to 
create  a  social  order  in  which  the  weakest  and 
humblest  shall  have  a  fair  opportunity  to 
develop  his  powers  and  capacities  in  the  free 
exercise  of  such  gifts  of  mind  and  heart  as 
God  has  given  him;  a  world  in  which  there 
shall  no  longer  be  a  few  who  are  oppressed  by 
their  own  luxury,  degraded  by  idleness  and 


THE    CHRISTIAN    AND    WEALTH     113 

self-indulgence,  and  a  great  multitude  whose 
lives  are  dwarfed  and  crippled  by  lack  of 
the  necessities  of  life ;  but  in  which  the  laws 
of  justice  and  brotherhood  shall  have  so 
equalized  human  conditions  as  to  make  it 
possible  for  every  human  being  to  stand 
erect,  a  free  man,  and  to  devote  himself 
freely  to  the  service  of  God. 


THE   CHRISTIAN   IDEAL 

War  and  wealth  are  the  two  most  serious 
problems  in  human  society,  and  a  study  of  the 
relation  of  Christianity  to  these  involves,  as 
we  have  seen,  a  fairly  comprehensive  survey 
of  the  whole  field  of  Christian  ethics. 

It  is  desirable,  however,  to  sum  up  the 
Christian  ideal  a  little  more  completely  and 
systematically. 

We  have  seen  what  were  the  main  out- 
lines of  the  ethical  teachings  of  Jesus. 

We  approach  the  matter  now  from  the  other 
side  and  endeavor  to  sum  up  the  net  impression 
of  Christianity  upon  the  thought  of  mankind. 

In  the  light  of  everything  that  Jesus  taught, 
and  in  the  light  as  well  of  nineteen  centuries 
of  Christian  teaching  and  influence,  what 
kind  of  man  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  perfect 
Christian  ? 

114 


THE    CHRISTIAN    IDEAL  115 


Before  we  take  this  question  up  in  detail, 
however,  one  very  important  observation 
must  be  made. 

We  have  been  discussing  Christianity  up 
to  this  point  entirely  from  the  point  of  view 
of  theory;  first,  its  philosophical  theory,  its 
interpretation  of  life,  and  second,  its  ethical 
theory,  the  demand  it  makes  upon  life. 

But  Christianity  is  not  primarily  a  theory ; 
it  is  an  experience.  Christianity  is  a  life. 
It  had  its  beginning  in  the  experience  of 
friendship  and  daily  association  with  Jesus. 
It  persisted  after  his  death  because  of  the 
spiritual  experience  of  the  early  disciples, 
growing  out  of  their  relation  to  him. 

It  has  endured  through  nineteen  centuries 
because  of  its  spiritual  vitality,  because  of  its 
dynamic  quickening  of  the  emotional  life, 
inspiring  the  hearts  of  men  with  courage  and 
zeal,  enlarging  and  transforming  their  lives 
and  creating  within  them  the  ideals  we  have 
sought  to  describe. 


116  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

It  is  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  importance 
of  this  distinction.  The  world  has  had  many 
ethical  theories.  What  it  has  lacked  is  a 
moral  dynamic. 

Lecky,  the  English  historian,  in  a  well-known 
passage  pointed  out  the  utter  failure  of  the 
lofty  stoical  ideal  to  exert  any  real  influence 
upon  human  conduct,  and  declared  that  it  was 
reserved  for  Christianity  to  present  to  mankind 
in  the  character  of  Jesus  a  personality  so  win- 
some and  powerful  that  the  brief  record  of  his 
active  life  has  done  more  to  soften  and  re- 
generate mankind  than  all  the  disquisitions  of 
philosophers  and  moralists. 

Life  always  comes  before  theory,  in  point 
of  time.  Men  ate  for  thousands  of  years 
before  they  reasoned  out  the  science  of 
physiology.  They  enjoyed  roses  and  violets 
long  before  they  elaborated  the  science  of 
botany. 

So  they  loved  and  hated,  they  lived  together 
in  communities  and  nations,  and  sought  to 
work  out  in  practical  experience  the  problem 
of  human  relations,  long  before  any  system- 


THE    CHRISTIAN    IDEAL  117 

atic  attempt  was  made  to  construct  a  the- 
ory of  the  ethical  life. 

The  same  principle  is  equally  true  in  the 
religious  realm.  Men  did  not  first  construct  a 
theological  interpretation  of  the  universe  and 
then  endeavor  to  experience  their  theology. 
They  experienced  emotions  of  wonder  and  awe, 
of  reverence  and  worship,  and  constructed  their 
religious  theories  to  interpret  the  experience. 

Christianity  builds  upon  the  foundation  of 
universal  human  experience.  Mankind  is  in- 
curably religious.  Among  the  Jewish  people 
this  religious  impulse  reached  its  highest  de- 
velopment and  expressed  itself  in  the  purest 
form. 

Jesus  Christ  coming  into  the  midst  of  the 
religious  life  of  Judaism  simply  purified  and 
vivified  the  religious  ideals  of  his  race,  and 
raised  the  religious  emotions  of  his  followers 
to  the  height  of  a  spiritual  passion  which 
became  a  life-giving,  fructifying  influence  in 
the  world,  having  power  to  reproduce  itself 
in  the  lives  of  others  with  whom  the  first 
disciples  came  in  contact. 


118  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

Christian  theology  is  nothing  in  the  world 
but  an  attempt  to  rationalize  that  experience, 
to  explain  and  interpret  it.  Christian  ethics 
is  but  the  attempt  to  express  in  a  complete 
and  systematic  fashion  the  ways  in  which  the 
Christian  impulses  find  normal  expression  in 
human  life. 

A  mere  philosophical  and  ethical  theory 
would  have  been  superseded  long  ago.  Chris- 
tianity has  survived  the  centuries  because  of 
this  living  experience  which  has  knit  the 
generations  together  in  a  continuity  of  life 
and  feeling. 

Paul  and  Peter  had  little  in  common  on  the 
intellectual  side.  They  were  made  blood- 
brothers  by  their  common  devotion  to  their 
Master,  and  their  common  experience  of 
heightened  religious  feeling  and  quickened 
ethical  purpose  which  grew  out  of  it. 

The  theology  of  Justin  Martyr  and  Origen, 
of  St.  Augustine  and  St.  Francis,  of  Thomas 
Aquinas  and  John  Calvin  differs  not  only  in 
many  particulars,  but  also  not  infrequently 
in  fundamental   principles;    but  they  are  all 


THE    CHRISTIAN    IDEAL  119 

sharers  of  a  common  spiritual  experience. 
They  have  all  drunk  from  this  stream  of 
warm  spiritual  emotion  and  dynamic  moral 
purpose  which  has  flowed  through  human 
history  from  the  personality  of  Jesus. 

The  critics  of  Christianity  have  seldom  given 
adequate  consideration  to  this  vital  fact. 

They  have  addressed  themselves  to  a  dis- 
cussion of  Christian  theory,  and  have  never 
been  at  a  loss  to  find  gaps  and  flaws  in  it, 
whereupon  they  consider  that  they  have  done 
away  with  Christianity.  They  forget  that 
life  is  the  fact,  and  theory  but  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  fact.  No  man's  digestion  was 
ever  directly  affected  by  the  limitations  of  his 
knowledge  of  physiology. 

Brudder  Jasper,  the  darky  preacher  of 
Richmond,  had  a  famous  sermon  on  "The 
sun  do  move."  He  saw  it  in  the  morning  on 
one  side  of  the  house  and  in  the  afternoon  on 
the  other.  The  house  hadn't  moved,  hence 
the  sun  must  have  moved.  We  smile  at 
Brother  Jasper's  logic,  but  we  set  our  watches 
by  the  sun  as  well  as  he. 


120  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

The  Christian  Scientist  who  believes  that 
matter  is  an  illusion,  and  the  materialist 
who  denies  all  spiritual  existence,  both  build 
their  houses  out  of  brick  and  mortar. 

To  have  a  mistaken  theory  is  unfortunate, 
but  to  ignore  facts  is  tragic.  The  life  of 
Christianity  is  the  most  significant  fact  in 
the  history  of  the  last  nineteen  centuries, 
and  the  one  most  commonly  ignored  by  his- 
torians. 

The  central  thing  in  Christianity,  viewed 
as  life  rather  than  theory,  is  its  experience  of 
God. 

The  Christian  believer  has  experienced  an 
emotional  exaltation  so  unique  and  powerful 
that  it  seems  nothing  less  than  the  immediate 
contact  of  the  soul  with  the  divine.  It  car- 
ries with  it  the  quickening  of  his  spiritual  im- 
pulses, the  purifying  of  his  moral  insight,  the 
strengthening  of  all  his  loftier  ethical  purposes. 
It  makes  him  a  wiser,  stronger,  better  man. 
It  implants  within  him  a  spirit  of  good  will 
which  impels  him  to  spend  himself  in  the 
service  of  his  fellow  men. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    IDEAL  121 

This  spiritual  experience  is  not  at  all  times 
equally  vivid  and  powerful,  nor  does  it  seize 
upon  all  individuals  in  the  same  way  or  to  the 
same  degree.  It  is  subject  to  all  the  psycho- 
logical laws  which  govern  the  emotional  experi- 
ences of  mankind  in  every  department  of  life. 

The  love  of  a  mother  for  her  babe,  of  a  son 
for  his  mother,  of  husbands  and  wives,  is  not 
always  equally  vivid.  The  impulses  which 
are  set  in  motion  in  moments  of  strong  feeling 
are  taken  up  by  the  moral  will  and  purpose 
and  carried  out  in  everyday  life  under  all  its 
fluctuations  of  emotional  intensity  ;  but  these 
warm  human  emotions  are  what  make  human 
life  the  rich  and  colorful  and  beautiful  thing 
it  is,  and  so  it  is  this  deep  undercurrent  of 
spiritual  emotion  which  constitutes  vital 
Christianity. 

From  this  point  of  view  a  Christian  is  one 
who  shares  the  Christian  emotion  and  experi- 
ence. His  theological  interpretation  of  it 
may  be  faulty,  his  answer  to  the  ethical 
demand  of  Jesus  may  be  imperfect;  but 
because   his   life   has    been    touched    by    the 


122  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

power  of  the  Christian  spirit  he  is  more  truly 
a  Christian  than  many  another  whose  theo- 
logical theories  and  ethical  ideals  may  be  per- 
fect, but  who  has  never  connected  his  theories 
with  life. 

The  greatest  word  in  Christian  speech  is 
love.  Jesus  himself  summed  up  the  whole 
meaning  of  life  in  the  command,  "Thou 
shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart, 
and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  That  man  is  a 
Christian  whose  life  is  moved  in  any  degree  by 
that  spirit ;  and  he  is  Christian  to  the  degree 
to  which  he  is  impelled  and  controlled  by  it. 

II 

We  come  now  to  ask  in  the  light  of  all  we 
have  learned  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  and  of  the 
essential  nature  of  the  Christian  experience, 
what  kind  of  man  a  perfect  Christian  would 
be.  What  is  the  Christian  ideal  for  the 
personal  life?  How  will  the  vital  experience 
in  the  soul  of  a  perfect  Christian  express  itself 
in  actual  life  ? 

If  our  understanding  of  the  spirit  and  pur- 


THE    CHRISTIAN    IDEAL  123 

pose  of  Jesus  is  correct,  such  a  man  will  not 
be  an  ascetic,  a  bloodless  and  anaemic  recluse, 
living  in  retirement  and  spending  his  life  in 
meditation  and  devotion.  He  will  not  find  it 
necessary  to  withdraw  himself  from  the  normal 
life  of  mankind  or  to  wear  himself  out  in  a 
fruitless  struggle  against  the  normal  impulses 
of  life.  Such  a  man  will  not  be  morbidly 
introspective,  forever  engaged  in  feeling  his 
own  spiritual  pulse  or  pulling  his  spiritual 
experience  up  by  the  roots  to  see  whether  it  is 
growing. 

Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  is  it  at  all  certain 
that  such  a  man  will  of  necessity  be  a  radical 
reformer,  a  wielder  of  the  big  stick  against 
all  the  wrongs  and  failures  of  human  society. 
There  will  doubtless  be  times  when  he  will  be 
called  upon  to  strike  mighty  blows  against 
wrong  and  oppression,  but  there  could  be  no 
greater  mistake  than  to  suppose  that  only  the 
ascetic  on  the  one  hand  and  the  reformer  on 
the  other  are  to  be  regarded  as  the  typical 
Christian. 

Asceticism  is  a  false  and  morbid  ideal,  born 


124  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

in  part  of  pagan  philosophy  and  in  part  of  a 
mistaken  devotion  to  the  letter  of  a  few  of 
Jesus's  sayings.  Spirited  and  aggressive  re- 
form has  often  been  the  product  of  the  Chris- 
tian motive,  but  it  is  a  tool  to  accomplish 
certain  results,  one  which  can  only  be  applied 
under  certain  conditions  and  must  always  be 
wielded  with  self-restraint  and  wisdom.  The 
reformer  ought  to  be  a  Christian  and  the 
Christian  must  sometimes  be  a  reformer,  but 
the  Christian  ideal  is  much  larger  than  this, 
and  must  not  be  confused  with  the  narrower 
purpose  and  more  limited  function  of  reform. 

If  we  should  undertake  to  describe  a  perfect 
Christian  life  on  the  positive  side,  I  think  we 
should  say  that  it  would  be  characterized, 
first  of  all,  by  the  recognition  of  spiritual 
forces  and  relations.  It  would  be  a  deeply 
religious  life  in  the  sense,  not  of  assiduous 
devotion  to  religious  forms  and  practices,  but 
of  living  continually  under  the  stimulating 
consciousness  of  its  spiritual  heritage. 

Its  attitude  toward  God  would  not  differ 
essentially  from  that  of  a  splendid  and  loyal 


THE    CHRISTIAN    IDEAL  125 

and  hard-working  son  who  is  a  partner  in  his 
father's  business,  who  finds  in  his  father's 
friendship  and  comradeship  a  great  joy  and 
a  powerful  stimulus  in  carrying  out  the  respon- 
sibilities of  his  daily  life. 

Such  a  Christian  life  as  this  would  be  great- 
souled.  That  is  to  say,  it  would  not  be  moved 
by  petty  ends  and  mean  motives.  It  would  be 
incapable  of  being  absorbed  by  trivial  things. 

The  indictment  which  Christianity  brings 
against  so  much  of  human  life  is  that  it  is  not 
worth  while. 

"For  a  cap  and  bells  our  lives  we  pay, 
Bubbles  we  buy  with  a  whole  soul's  tasking." 

To  pursue  amusement  and  pleasure,  social 
prestige,  political  ambition  and  business 
success  as  the  chief  things  in  life,  is  to 
betray  a  woeful  lack  of  perspective ;  to  get 
the  whole  center  of  gravity  of  life  in  the 
wrong  place.  It  is  not  that  any  of  these 
things  are  wrong  in  themselves,  so  that  the 
Christian  must  withdraw  from  them  and  live 
as    though    they   were   not;     but   that   they 


126  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

should  be  mere  incidents  of  a  life  devoted  to 
higher  ends. 

The  Christian  is  one  who  is  engaged  upon 
the  great  task  of  building  a  character  worthy 
to  endure  beyond  this  brief  experience;  of 
establishing  in  the  world  the  great  ideals  of 
purity  and  justice  and  truth;  of  helping  his 
fellow  men  in  their  sorrows  and  struggles ;  of 
establishing  the  kingdom  of  righteousness  and 
peace  and  joy  in  holiness  of  spirit. 

To  imagine  that  such  an  one  ought  to  be  too 
solemn  to  find  pleasure  in  a  jest,  too  serious 
to  take  any  relaxation  in  play  or  pleasure,  too 
conscious  of  life's  tragedies  ever  to  unbend 
from  his  stern  devotion  to  the  moral  impera- 
tive, too  absorbed  in  the  contemplation  of 
heaven  to  know  or  care  anything  about  the 
affairs  of  this  life,  is  utterly  to  misconceive 
the  spirit  and  attitude  of  Jesus  or  the  real 
demand  of  the  Christian  ideal. 

A  Christian  is  one  who  uses  all  these  things 
merely  as  a  means  to  a  larger  end,  and  so  is 
everywhere  master  of  himself  and  of  the 
conditions  of  life  instead  of  becoming  a  slave 


THE    CHRISTIAN    IDEAL  127 

to  his  impulses  or  to  the  circumstances  in 
which  he  is  placed. 

Such  a  life  will  be  characterized  by  the  spirit 
of  kindness  and  love. 

Love  is  not  sentimental  gush  nor  easy- 
going tolerance  —  it  is  entirely  compatible 
with  strength  and  dignity,  with  resoluteness 
of  purpose,  with  keen  endeavor  to  accomplish 
the  work  of  the  world. 

It  simply  means  the  spirit  of  modesty,  of 
considerateness,  of  courtesy,  of  patience  and 
forbearance  ;  the  recognition  of  other's  rights, 
the  set  purpose  to  serve  and  please.  It  means 
unselfishness.  It  means  a  life  measured  not  in 
terms  of  what  one  is  going  to  get  out  of  it 
but  of  how  much  one  can  put  into  it.  It 
means  a  high  moral  earnestness,  an  unhesitat- 
ing consecration  of  oneself  to  the  good  of 
mankind  and  the  service  of  the  kingdom  of 
God. 

Such  a  life  is  a  life  which  will  not  shrink 
from  sacrifice,  which  has  learned  to  put  first 
things  first,  and  knows  that  nothing  which  life 
can  give  can  ever  make  up  to  any  man  the 


128  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

loss  he  sustains  when  he  subordinates  right  to 
self-interest,  or  fails  by  reason  of  cowardice  or 
indifference  to  be  true  to  his  own  loftiest  ideals. 

Ill 

When  once  the  Christian  ideal  is  interpreted 
in  this  broad  and  sincere  fashion,  an  innumer- 
able multitude  of  examples  rush  to  mind. 

One  recent  magazine  writer  convinced  him- 
self that  the  Christian  church  was  a  failure  as 
soon  as  it  was  born,  because  it  misapprehended 
its  Master  and  sought  to  inculcate  philosophy 
and  win  ecclesiastical  power  instead  of  allow- 
ing the  religious  impulse  to  run  a  perfectly 
free  course  in  the  world.  Another  is  quite 
sure  that  there  are  no  Christians  left ;  that 
perhaps  indeed  there  never  have  been  any,  — 
with  the  possible  exception  of  St.  Francis. 

But  when  one  looks  frankly  and  simply 
at  the  history  of  Christianity,  interpreting  the 
Christian  ideal  in  the  light  of  ordinary  good 
sense,  though  with  a  clear  recognition  of  the 
lofty  purity  of  its  moral  imperative,  it  becomes 
clear  that  while  there  has  never  been  and  can 


THE    CHRISTIAN    IDEAL  129 

never  be  a  perfect  Christian,  a  man  whose 
life  completely  embodies  and  illustrates  the 
whole  significance  of  Christian  love,  neverthe- 
less, from  the  days  of  the  Apostles  until  now 
an  innumerable  multitude  of  whom  the  world 
was  not  worthy  have  borne  witness  to  the 
power  of  the  Christian  motive  and  have 
handed  down  the  torch  of  Christian  light  and 
life  to  succeeding  generations. 

St.  Francis  was  indeed  a  Christian,  not  be- 
cause of  his  poverty  or  his  asceticism,  but  in 
virtue  of  his  splendid  loyalty  to  the  truth  as 
he  understood  it,  and  above  all  of  the  exhaust- 
less  tenderness  of  his  love. 

A  very  different  type  was  Martin  Luther, 
rugged,  uncouth  and  simple,  but  he  was  no 
less  a  Christian  when,  in  the  light  of  the  insight 
that  any  man  might  draw  near  to  God  in  the 
simplicity  of  his  own  heart,  without  need  of 
priest  or  mediator,  he  faced  the  emperor  and 
the  church  with  the  noble  words:  "Here  I 
stand;    I  can  do  no  other,  God  help  me!" 

Reformers  whose  zeal  purified  the  state, 
established  justice  and  advanced  the  cause  of 


130  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

liberty  and  democracy :  Calvin  at  Geneva, 
John  Knox  in  Scotland,  Garrison  and  Wendell 
Phillips  in  America,  were  nobly  Christian 
in  their  loyalty  to  justice  and  righteousness 
and  their  uncompromising  opposition  to  op- 
pression and  wrong  at  all  cost. 

Lord  Shaftesbury  spent  his  whole  life  and 
fortune  in  self-sacrificing  service  of  the  poor 
and  oppressed,  and  when  he  died,  uncounted 
thousands  of  the  common  people  followed  his 
casket  through  the  streets  of  London  to  its 
resting  place  in  Westminster  Abbey,  while 
grimy  newsboys,  the  tears  marking  white 
furrows  down  their  cheeks,  said  one  to  another, 
"Our  Earl  is  dead." 

William  Booth  left  the  ministry  of  the 
Methodist  church  that  he  might  give  himself 
unreservedly  to  the  service  of  the  London 
slums. 

Florence  Nightingale  faced  death  in  the 
trenches  of  the  Crimea  to  minister  to  the 
wounded  and  suffering. 

The  heart  of  David  Livingstone  is  buried 
in  the  Africa  he  died  to  save,  and  on  the  slab 


THE    CHRISTIAN    IDEAL  131 

that  covers  his  body  in  Westminster  Abbey 
is  inscribed  his  noble  appeal  to  the  Christian 
nations  to  heal  the  hurt  of  Africa,  "  the  open 
sore  of  the  world." 

But  not  monks  and  reformers  and  phi- 
lanthropists and  missionaries  alone  have  em- 
bodied the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Washington  was  a  Christian  when  he  stood 
in  simple  dignity  for  liberty  and  justice,  and 
by  his  wisdom  and  integrity  guided  the  infant 
republic  to  the  establishment  of  a  stable  and 
just  government.  He  was  Christian  when  he 
put  aside  all  thought  of  ambition  and  refused 
to  allow  the  plot  of  his  officers  to  offer  him 
the  crown  so  much  as  to  come  to  a  head. 

Garibaldi  was  Christian  when  he  struggled 
to  liberate  Italy  from  the  cruel  oppression  of 
Austria  and  said  to  the  young  men  of  his 
country,  "I  promise  you  forced  marches, 
short  rations,  bloody  battles,  wounds,  im- 
prisonment and  death  —  let  him  who  loves 
home  and  fatherland  follow  me!" 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  Christian  states- 
man when  he  freed  the  slaves,  and  when  by 


132  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

example  no  less  than  precept  he  taught  his 
countrymen  how  to  carry  forward  their  great 
task  "with  malice  toward  none,  with  charity 
for  all,  with  firmness  in  the  right  as  God  gave 
them  to  see  the  right." 

Who  shall  say  that  a  soldier  like  Philip  Sidney 
was  not  a  Christian,  who  when  he  was  dying 
on  the  field  of  battle  gave  the  cup  of  water 
someone  brought  him  to  a  wounded  comrade 
with  the  words,  "You  need  it  more  than  I." 

In  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  in  London  is  a 
simple  cenotaph  erected  to  the  memory  of 
Chinese  Gordon,  who  was  murdered  at  Khar- 
tum. On  it  is  this  inscription:  "To  the 
memory  of  Charles  George  Gordon,  who 
always  and  everywhere  gave  his  strength 
to  the  weak,  his  substance  to  the  poor,  his 
sympathy  to  the  suffering,  and  his  heart  to 
God." 

These  are  the  outstanding  lives,  the  heroes 
of  the  faith.  With  them  comes  a  great  multi- 
tude which  no  man  can  number,  who  through 
great  tribulation  have  maintained  their  loyalty 
to  the  spirit  and  purpose  of  their  Master. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    IDEAL  133 

They  all,  from  the  least  to  the  greatest,  are 
fragmentary  lives.  They  would  have  been 
the  last  to  claim  virtue  for  themselves,  the 
first  to  confess  that  they  were  chief  of  sinners. 
As  has  been  well  said,  Christianity  is  a  flying 
goal.  The  ideal  itself  grows  ever  more  lofty 
and  perfect  as  our  understanding  broadens 
and  deepens.  We  have  this  treasure  in 
earthen  vessels.  It  could  not  be  otherwise 
in  such  a  world  as  that  in  which  we  live. 

To  shut  our  eyes  to  actual  conditions  and 
spend  ourselves  in  the  pursuit  of  unreal  and 
impossible  fantasies  is  a  waste  of  energy,  and 
an  utter  failure  to  comprehend  the  spirit 
and  purpose  of  the  loftiest  spiritual  truth  the 
world  has  yet  received. 

On  the  other  hand,  to  fix  our  eyes  on  the 
weaknesses  and  faults  of  good  men,  and  to 
deny  the  power  and  worth  of  the  Christian 
ideal  because  it  has  hitherto  found  but  im- 
perfect fulfilment  in  any  life,  is  idle  folly. 

The  Christian  ideal  is  that  of  a  life  marked 
by  simple  purity  and  integrity,  and  moved  by 
great-hearted  devotion  to  the  service  of  God 


134  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

and  man.  Such  an  ideal  may  be  set  aside 
when  any  of  its  critics  can  suggest  one  that  is 
worthier  or  which  has  more  power  to  command 
the  devotion  of  men. 

IV 

The  standards  of  personal  character  do 
not,  however,  exhaust  the  Christian  ideal. 
It  is  true  that  the  emphasis  both  in  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus  and  in  the  historic  development  of 
Christian  ethics  is  upon  the  individual  life,  but 
it  is  always  the  individual  in  social  relations. 

The  present  generation  has  witnessed  the 
greatest  expansion  in  Christian  thought  since 
the  Reformation,  in  the  growing  recognition 
of  the  social  significance  of  Christianity. 

It  is  a  commonplace  of  present-day  discus- 
sions that  the  solidarity  of  mankind  has  been 
very  greatly  enhanced  by  the  developments  of 
the  last  hundred  years.  Families,  communities, 
and  nations  no  longer  live  in  isolation  from 
each  other,  but  the  whole  world  is  bound 
together  in  the  most  complex  web  of  mutual 
interest  and  mutual  dependence. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    IDEAL  135 

As  a  result  the  social  obligations  of  men 
have  been  intensified.  New  definitions  of 
sin  have  been  made  necessary,  new  applica- 
tions of  old  ethical  principles  are  revealed. 
The  highwayman  of  the  seventeenth  century 
robbed  his  victim  at  the  point  of  a  pistol; 
his  successor  in  our  day  organizes  a  blue- 
sky  mining  company,  or  sells  building  lots  in 
the  bottom  of  a  ravine.  Men  formerly 
committed  murder  by  knife  or  poison ;  to-day 
by  selling  impure  milk  or  putting  the  price  of 
ice  beyond  the  reach  of  the  poor. 

All  this  has  necessitated  a  broader  inter- 
pretation of  Christian  ethics.  A  thousand 
new  questions  have  arisen.  What  is  the 
bearing  of  Christianity  upon  the  duty  of  a 
working  man  in  the  matter  of  labor  unions, 
or  the  question  of  the  open  shop  ?  What  has 
it  to  say  to  the  holder  of  Standard  Oil  or 
Steel  Trust  stock  ? 

The  responsibility  for  injustice  and  wrong 
has  become  so  widely  distributed  as  to  lose  its 
weight  upon  the  individual  conscience.  A 
few  years  ago  the  representative  of  one  of  the 


136  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

popular  magazines  began  investigating  polit- 
ical graft  in  American  municipal  government. 
He  began  by  considering  the  tribute  exacted 
by  the  police  department  from  the  resorts  of 
vice.  This  led  on  the  one  hand  to  the  owner- 
ship of  property,  the  existence  of  slums  and 
tenements ;  and  on  the  other  hand  to  the 
influences  which  brought  about  the  election 
of  city  officials.  Presently  he  discovered  that 
public  service  corporations  were  involved. 
More  than  once  it  happened  that  the  men 
who  financed  a  campaign  against  vice  grew 
hostile  when  the  investigation  began  to  lay 
bare  the  wider  ramifications  of  the  evil  of  graft. 

In  the  end  the  investigator  summed  up 
years  of  study  by  throwing  the  responsibility 
back  upon  the  whole  business  organization, 
and  —  contrary  to  the  maxim  of  Burke  — 
indicted  the  whole  people.  The  recent  in- 
vestigations of  industrial  conditions  in  Colo- 
rado have  brought  to  light  a  similar  shifting 
of  responsibility. 

The  significance  of  all  this  for  our  discussion 
is  to  indicate  that  if  Christianity  is  to  have 


THE    CHRISTIAN    IDEAL  137 

any  meaning  for  the  modern  world  with  its 
vast  complex  of  social  and  industrial  relations, 
its  ethics  must  be  interpreted  in  a  broader 
way  than  ever  before. 

It  is  not  enough  to  ask  what  is  the  duty  of 
individuals  in  their  direct  personal  contact 
with  each  other;  but  how  the  spirit  of  the 
Christian  ethics  can  find  embodiment  in  the 
whole  web  of  the  social  order. 

A  little  reflection  shows,  however,  that  no 
new  principles  are  required.  The  application 
of  the  laws  of  love  and  service  to  the  new  con- 
ditions is  the  only  thing  which  can  purify 
modern  life  and  destroy  the  abuses  under 
which  mankind  is  suffering  to-day. 

The  social  ideal  of  Christianity  is  that  of 
a  world  bound  together  by  mutual  service; 
a  world  so  organized  that  the  power  of  evil 
men  to  exploit  their  weaker  or  less  fortunate 
neighbors  shall  be  reduced  to  a  minimum;  a 
world  in  which  all  discoverable  injustices  in 
the  organization  of  society  shall  be  eliminated. 

If  this  results  in  lessening  the  profits  which 
accrue  to  any  social  group,  this  only  means 


138  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

that  hitherto  this  group  has  been  getting  more 
than  its  fair  share  of  the  product  of  toil. 

A  clear-eyed  and  courageous  Christianity 
must  insist  that  no  man  has  discharged  his 
full  duty  when  he  has  applied  the  Christian 
spirit  to  his  concrete  personal  relations ;  but 
that  his  conscience  no  less  than  his  practical 
judgment  must  be  socialized  until  he  shall 
apply  in  all  the  multiplied  activities  of  his 
business  and  political  life  the  same  funda- 
mental principles  which  bid  him  sacrifice  his 
own  interests  for  the  sake  of  his  fellows, 
and  shall  do  his  part  to  establish  justice  and 
good  will  as  the  organic  law  of  the  social  order. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  when  Jesus  sought 
a  single  name  by  which  to  make  known  the 
total  aim  and  purpose  of  his  activity  he  found 
it  in  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

The  chief  good,  the  pearl  of  great  price  to 
purchase  which  it  was  fitting  that  a  man 
should  sell  all  that  he  had,  was  neither  individ- 
ual happiness  nor  individual  salvation.  It 
was  the  Kingdom  of  God,  the  redeemed  and 


THE    CHRISTIAN    IDEAL         139 

glorified  social  order  in  which  the  will  of  God 
should  inform  and  permeate  every  relation  of 
the  entire  structure,  so  that  the  whole  of  hu- 
manity should  be  lifted  up  to  the  level  of  the 
perfect  social  ideal. 

The  glowing  promises  of  the  closing  chapters 
of  the  Book  of  Revelation  have  to  do  not  with 
a  Paradise  in  some  distant  star,  but  with  a 
City  of  God  which  cometh  down  from  God 
out  of  Heaven,  adorned  as  a  bride  for  her 
husband,  to  make  this  world  its  permanent 
abiding  place.  Into  it  shall  enter  nothing 
that  defileth  or  that  loveth  and  maketh  a  lie ; 
but  they  shall  bring  the  honor  and  the  glory 
of  the  nations  into  it. 

This  is  the  supreme  vision  which  Christian- 
ity sets  before  mankind.  The  world  can 
never  go  back  to  the  individualistic  faith  of 
our  fathers.  No  man  to-day  can  be  thoroughly 
and  vitally  a  Christian  who  does  not  make 
the  achievement  of  this  perfect  social  order 
the  supreme  hope  of  his  heart  and  the  supreme 
end  of  his  practical  endeavor. 


VI 

THE   CHRISTIAN  HOPE 

In  all  this  discussion  of  the  beliefs  and  ideals 
of  Christianity,  we  have  said  almost  nothing 
of  certain  matters  which  formed  the  staple  of 
Christian  preaching  a  generation  ago. 

I 

Perhaps  the  greatest  theologian  America 
has  produced,  a  saint,  and  one  of  the  great 
preachers  of  the  world,  was  Jonathan 
Edwards.  His  most  famous  sermon  was  en- 
titled, "Sinners  in  the  Hands  of  an  angry 
God."  In  it  he  described  men  as  suspended 
by  a  thread  over  the  bottomless  pit  of  eternal 
woe. 

The  note  struck  by  Jonathan  Edwards  has 
formed  so  characteristic  a  part  of  Christian 
teaching  that  to  many  people  Christianity 
means    nothing    else    than    the    attempt    to 

140 


THE    CHRISTIAN    HOPE  141 

frighten  men  into  virtue  by  fear  of  hell  fire. 
When  Kipling  desires  to  contrast  the  teaching 
of  the  gentle  Buddha,  and  to  urge  upon  Chris- 
tians a  broader  charity  toward  their  heathen 
brothers,  he  addresses  them  as 

"Ye  who  tread  the  Narrow  Way, 
By  Tophet-flare  to  Judgment  Day." 

Forty  years  ago  one  seldom  heard  a  ser- 
mon, and  certainly  never  an  evangelistic 
appeal,  which  did  not  rest  its  case  mainly 
upon  the  sinner's  impending  doom. 

To  many  earnest  and  thoughtful  people 
the  loss  of  this  sense  of  the  exceeding  sinful- 
ness of  sin  and  the  awfulness  of  God's  wrath 
against  it  accounts  for  the  spiritual  flabbi- 
ness  of  modern  life  and  the  failure  of  the 
church  to  make  any  impression  upon  the 
world. 

There  can  be  no  doubt,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  that  Christianity  regards  life  as  involving 
a  genuine  moral  risk,  or  that  it  regards  sin  as 
involving  utter  spiritual  disaster  and  death.  It 
is  doubtless  true  that  the  thought  of  our  day  is 


142  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

extremely  superficial  at  this  point,  and  that 
the  world  is  impatient  of  the  stern  warning 
which  religion  utters. 

The  changed  emphasis  in  religious  teaching, 
however,  is  not  merely  a  weak  concession  to 
the  spirit  of  the  time.  It  is  due  in  large 
part  to  factors  in  modern  thought  which  are 
in  reality  the  product  of  Christianity  itself. 

Chief  of  these  is  the  recognition  of  the 
spiritual  possibilities  of  human  nature.  Men 
have  come  to  see  that  it  is  possible  to  trans- 
form bad  men  into  good.  Their  attitude 
toward  the  criminal  is  no  longer  that  of 
vengeance,  but  rather  of  desire  for  his  reforma- 
tion. Our  penal  institutions  are  becoming 
reformatories,  and  there  is  a  growing  convic- 
tion that  in  the  heart  of  the  worst  man  lie 
buried  possibilities  of  goodness  which  need 
only  to  be  quickened  into  life  and  given  an 
opportunity  for  development  to  change  the 
whole  character  of  the  man. 

On  the  surface  this  attitude  seems  to  involve 
a  denial  of  one  of  the  teachings  of  orthodoxy 
which  has  long  been  regarded  as  a  corner- 


THE    CHRISTIAN    HOPE  143 

stone  of  religious  truth ;  namely,  the  depravity 
of  human  nature  by  reason  of  which  the  heart 
of  man  is  inclined  to  evil  and  that  continually, 
—  on  which  account  he  deserves  damna- 
tion and  can  be  saved  only  by  being  born 
again  and  receiving  a  new  nature  in  place 
of  that  which  he  inherited  from  our  first 
father. 

This  doctrine  in  its  traditional  form  was 
the  product  of  devotion  to  the  literal  inter- 
pretation of  the  scriptures,  and  has  largely 
given  place  in  modern  theology  to  a  recog- 
nition of  the  weakness  and  imperfection  of 
undeveloped  humanity,  by  reason  of  which 
it  is  like  a  little  child  and  needs  the  for- 
bearance and  wise  guidance  of  parental  love. 
The  child  may  still  be  wilful  and  rebellious, 
and  so  cut  himself  off  from  the  family  life 
and  from  his  Father's  help.  The  change 
of  attitude  involved  in  his  self-surrender 
to  his  Father  brings  about  such  a  transforma- 
tion in  his  spirit  and  life  as  may  justly  be 
called  a  new  birth. 

The  new  theology  insists  no  less  earnestly 


144  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

than  the  old  on  the  necessity  for  this  changed 
attitude,  and  upon  the  grave  peril  of  moral 
degeneration  and  death  which  is  involved 
in  the  persistent  attitude  of  wilful  self- 
assertion.  But  the  new  theology  takes  the 
parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son  rather  than  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans  as  the  basis  for  its 
psychology  of  religion. 

It  is  not  always  realized  that  the  old  the- 
ology made  provision  for  quite  as  broad  an 
interpretation  of  sin  and  regeneration  through 
its  doctrine  of  "prevenient  grace."  The 
sinner  at  all  times  was  subject  to  such  opera- 
tion of  the  divine  Spirit  in  his  soul  as  made 
it  possible  for  him  at  any  time,  by  simply 
changing  his  attitude  toward  God,  to  come 
immediately  into  the  relation  of  sonship 
and  receive  the  regenerating  influence  of 
divine  grace. 

Translated  into  untechnical  language,  this 
meant  that  although  there  was  in  reality 
nothing  good  in  ordinary  human  nature,  the 
divine  power  was  continually  at  work  even 
in  the  hearts  of  bad   men,   supplying  those 


THE    CHRISTIAN    HOPE  145 

rudimentary  impulses  toward  good  which, 
if  given  free  play,  had  power  to  transform 
the  bad  man  into  a  good  one. 

Modern  thought  simply  does  away  with 
the  theological  machinery  which  was  the 
tribute  paid  to  the  literal  interpretation  of 
the  New  Testament,  and  says  there  are  in 
the  heart  of  the  worst  man  good  impulses 
which,  if  stimulated  and  developed,  are  capa- 
ble of  transforming  him  into  a  good  man. 
All  we  have  lost  is  a  considerable  amount  of 
obscure  theological  reasoning,  and  we  have 
gained  a  more  frank  and  simple  approach  to 
the  human  soul. 

This  change  in  the  theory  of  spiritual 
dynamics,  coupled  with  a  growing  recognition 
of  the  reformatory  rather  than  vengeful  pur- 
pose of  punitive  measures,  have  largely  dis- 
placed the  appeal  to  the  motive  of  fear  in 
Christian  preaching.  Men  have  come  to 
feel  that  there  is  not  much  moral  value  in 
refraining  from  sin  simply  for  fear  of  punish- 
ment. 

All  that  was  really  of  value  in  the  old  way 


146  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

of  getting  at  things  is  preserved  in  the  recog- 
nition that  every  act  has  its  unescapable 
consequences,  and  that  the  evil  and  selfish 
impulses  of  human  nature  will  lead  to  sure 
personal  and  social  disaster  if  indulged. 

II 

The  other  principal  element  in  the  Christian 
preaching  with  which  most  of  us  were  familiar 
in  our  childhood  was  the  glowing  and  vivid 
description  of  Paradise.  This  also  has  been  a 
favorite  point  of  attack  for  the  critics  of  the 
faith,  who  regard  religion  as  an  attempt  to 
bribe  men  into  virtue  by  promises  of  reward. 

No  doubt  this  motive  has  often  been  crudely 
employed  in  Christian  preaching,  and  the 
world  has  happily  outgrown  it.  We  have 
come  to  see  that  there  is  little  moral  value 
in  obedience  which  must  be  purchased  by  a 
gift. 

It  may  be  worth  while,  however,  to  stop 
just  for  a  moment  to  note  that  there  is  a 
broad  sense  in  which  the  hope  of  reward 
plays  a  large  and  legitimate  part  in  all  human 


THE    CHRISTIAN    HOPE  147 

life.  From  the  scholarships  and  medals  and 
honorary  degrees  which  are  the  prizes  of 
scholarly  attainment,  to  the  vast  profits 
which  reward  enterprise  and  foresight  in  the 
commercial  realm,  men  pay  universal  tribute 
to   this   motive   in   their   ordinary   activities. 

The  kind  of  prizes  which  appeal  most  to 
men  may  differ  widely  in  individual  cases. 
As  character  is  developed  and  the  spiritual 
insight  becomes  more  profound,  the  character 
of  the  desired  reward  becomes  higher  and 
purer.  Doubtless,  the  true  saint  is  he  whose 
virtue  is  its  own  reward ;  that  is  to  say,  who 
finds  in  the  consciousness  of  spiritual  victory, 
and  the  approval  of  right-thinking  souls, 
the  enduring  satisfaction  which  repays  him 
for  all  of  the  sacrifices  involved  in  the  spiritual 
struggle. 

But  to  deny  the  power  of  this  motive  to 
sustain  men  in  the  conflict,  and  to  inspire 
them  to  look  beyond  the  present  moment 
to  the  future  achievement,  is  simply  to  lose 
oneself  in  words  and  to  refuse  to  face  real 
life. 


148  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

The  real  meaning  of  the  promise  of  heaven 
which  has  played  so  large  a  part  in  Christian 
thought  and  life  is  the  enthronement  of  hope 
in  human  experience;  the  assurance  that  in 
God's  good  time  every  human  problem  will 
be  solved  and  every  normal  desire  of  human 
nature  find  its  ultimate  satisfaction. 

Christianity  is  the  religion  of  hope.  It 
looks  out  upon  a  world  which  is  confessedly 
imperfect  and  fragmentary,  and  refuses  to 
believe  it  a  finished  world,  done  with  and  set 
aside. 

It  refuses  equally  to  believe  it  an  accidental 
world,  a  by-product  of  processes  and  forces 
which  no  one  can  understand  and  of  which 
we  know  nothing. 

It  finds  rather  in  the  very  imperfection  of 
the  world  the  promise  of  hope.  It  looks 
upon  creation  as  a  process.  It  anticipated 
by  nineteen  centuries  the  doctrine  of  evolu- 
tion which  declares  all  existence  to  be  a 
progress  toward  some  far-off  end.  It  sees  in 
every  springtime  the  promise  of  harvest,  in 
every  seed  the  promise  of  growth,  in  every 


THE    CHRISTIAN    HOPE  149 

flower  the  promise  of  fruit.  It  knows  that 
childhood  is  imperfect,  but  sees  the  promise 
of  childhood  fulfilled  in  manhood. 

So  when  it  finds  humanity  imperfect,  it 
dares  to  look  forward  to  the  dawn  of  a  new 
day  when  the  lessons  of  life  shall  have  been 
learned,  when  the  individual  shall  have  at- 
tained to  the  full  spiritual  stature  of  the 
sons  of  God,  and  human  society  become 
the  heavenly  kingdom. 

Ill 

In  the  early  church  the  Christian  hope 
took  the  form  of  the  anticipation  of  the 
speedy  return  of  Christ  to  set  up  in  person 
his  kingdom  in  the  earth. 

Certain  of  Christ's  own  sayings  seemed 
to  promise  such  return,  at  least  in  the  form 
in  which  they  have  come  down  to  us.  It  is 
impossible  to  be  certain  whether  Jesus  him- 
self said  these  things  in  this  form,  or  whether 
by  reason  of  the  crude  Messianic  hopes 
which  his  disciples  shared  with  the  rest  of 
the  Jewish  people  they  misapprehended  what 


150  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

he  did  say  and  reported  him  imperfectly; 
but  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  New  Testa- 
ment writers  shared  the  belief  of  their  breth- 
ren that  the  generation  then  alive  would 
witness  the  return  of  Christ  and  the  setting 
up  of  his  miraculous  heavenly  kingdom  on 
earth. 

There  is  equally  no  doubt  that  they  were 
mistaken.  The  generation  of  the  apostles 
fell  on  sleep  and  were  gathered  to  their 
fathers.  Nineteen  centuries  have  passed 
away  and  history  goes  on  in  its  accustomed 
way. 

Nevertheless,  the  hope  of  the  literal  re- 
turn of  Christ  to  set  up  a  miraculous  kingdom 
on  the  earth  has  persisted.  Men  have  com- 
forted themselves  with  remembering  that  a 
thousand  years  are  with  the  Lord  as  one 
day,  and  that  the  mistake  of  the  early  dis- 
ciples as  to  the  time  does  not  of  necessity 
vitiate  the  hope  of  his  coming. 

We  have  no  desire  to  enter  into  the  con- 
troversy over  the  return  of  Christ,  but  there 
are  two  or  three  things  which  must  be  said. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    HOPE  151 

The  first  is  that  those  interpreters  of 
prophecy  who  find  in  the  books  of  Daniel, 
Ezekiel  and  Revelations  indications  that  these 
are  the  last  times,  or  who  regard  the  war 
in  Europe  as  Armageddon,  have  had  their 
predecessors  in  every  age.  The  Beast  has 
been  Nero,  Mohammed,  Caesar  Borgia  and 
Napoleon;  the  Scarlet  Woman  has  been 
Islam,  the  Roman  Church  and  Mrs.  Eddy. 
The  utter  lack  of  any  general  agreement 
among  the  advocates  of  this  point  of  view 
as  to  the  interpretation  of  the  prophecies 
renders  the  sober  thinker  somewhat  skeptical 
regarding  the  whole  religious  conception  in- 
volved. 

If  we  will  remember  the  principle  which 
we  have  elsewhere  found  so  fruitful  in  inter- 
preting the  sayings  of  Jesus,  namely  that  he 
meant  not  what  he  said,  but  what  he  meant, 
we  may  discover  that  it  is  not  necessary  to 
take  him  literally  in  this  connection. 

He  said,  This  generation  shall  not  pass 
away  until  these  promises  be  fulfilled.  He 
said,  There  are  some  standing  here  who  shall 


152  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

not  taste  death  until  they  shall  see  the  king- 
dom of  God  come  with  power. 

If  we  ignore  the  literal  implication  of  these 
words  and  content  ourselves  with  their  spirit, 
we  shall  see  that  they  were  amply  fulfilled 
in  their  own  time  and  have  received  repeated 
and  larger  fulfilment  throughout  Christian 
history. 

The  little  group  of  frightened  disciples 
who  fled  from  the  mob  in  Gethsemane,  or 
warmed  themselves  tremblingly  at  the  fire 
in  the  outer  court  of  the  high  priest's  palace 
while  their  Master  met  his  trial  within,  were 
utterly  crushed  by  his  crucifixion.  Their 
hopes  were  destroyed,  and  they  said  sadly 
one  to  another,  "We  trusted  that  it  had 
been  he  who  should  have  redeemed    Israel." 

But  something  happened  in  Joseph's  garden 
which  turned  their  despair  to  wonder  and 
hope  and  radiant  joy.  John  and  Peter  found 
the  tomb  empty.  Mary  looked  into  the 
face  of  One  whom  she  supposed  to  be  the 
gardener,  heard  him  say,  Mary,  and  clasped 
his   feet    with    the    rapturous    cry,    Rabboni. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    HOPE  153 

Doubting  Thomas  looked  upon  a  form  he 
thought  never  to  see  again,  and  put  his 
finger  into  the  print  of  the  nails  and  his 
hand  into  the  thrust  of  the  spear,  and  won- 
deringly  cried,  My  Lord  and  my  God. 

Waiving  the  debate  as  to  the  physical 
reality  of  these  apparitions,  or  even  the 
authenticity  of  the  stories  themselves,  some- 
thing happened  to  these  men  and  women 
which  turned  them  from  a  scattered  group 
of  crushed  and  disappointed  mourners  into 
a  radiant  band  of  death-defying  enthusiasts 
who  lived  henceforth  in  the  glad  conviction 
that  the  kingdom  of  God  was  come  with 
power. 

Once  more  the  little  group  gathered  in  an 
upper  room  in  Jerusalem  for  prayer  and 
praise,  and  to  talk  over  the  wonderful  events 
of  the  past  few  weeks.  They  were  still 
blind  and  ignorant  as  to  the  larger  meaning 
of  their  Master's  teaching.  They  had  no 
conception  of  his  spiritual  power.  But  while 
they  waited  there  came  suddenly  upon  them 
a  baptism  of  spiritual  inspiration. 


154  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

Again  we  waive  the  question  as  to  the 
nature  of  this  experience.  Something  hap- 
pened on  the  day  of  Pentecost  in  Jerusalem 
to  that  little  band  of  Jewish  peasants  which 
made  them  a  flaming  fire  and  sent  them 
forth  to  light  the  torch  of  spiritual  enthusiasm 
throughout  the  Roman  Empire.  In  less  than 
twenty  years  men  were  saying  in  remote 
Greek  cities,  "They  that  turn  the  world 
upside  down  have  come  hither  also."  Within 
a  generation  Roman  Emperors  were  consulting 
what  to  do  to  check  the  new  movement.  In 
less  than  three  hundred  years  the  gibbet 
on  which  a  Jewish  peasant  met  a  malefac- 
tor's death  became  the  proud  standard  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  and  the  armies  of  the  world 
marched  under  it  with  the  slogan,  "In  This 
Sign,  Conquer."  Was  not  this  a  fulfilment 
of  the  promise  of  Jesus? 

One  other  event  of  striking  significance  to 
the  Jewish  mind  must  be  taken  into  account. 

Remember  that  the  Jew  regarded  himself 
as  chosen  of  God;  he  believed  implicitly  in 
the  miraculous  history  of  the  Old  Testament. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    HOPE  155 

He  looked  confidently  for  the  day  when  Jeru- 
salem should  be  the  capital  of  the  earth  and 
the  king  of  the  House  of  David  should  give 
the  law  to  the  Roman  Empire. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  even  to  Jewish  Chris- 
tians the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  was  the 
end  of  the  world?  It  at  least  marked  the 
end  of  a  mighty  epoch  in  the  spiritual  his- 
tory of  mankind.  To  us  who  look  back  upon 
it  from  the  viewpoint  of  modern  civilization,  it 
was  at  worst  nothing  more  significant  than  the 
destruction  of  Louvain.  Nineveh  and  Bab- 
ylon have  disappeared.  Alexandria  was  de- 
stroyed by  the  Caliph  Omar.  The  fall  of 
Jerusalem  to  us  is  only  one  of  many  similar 
catastrophes  in  human  history.  But  to  the 
devout  Jew,  even  the  Jewish  Christian,  it 
was  a  cataclysm  even  more  overwhelming 
than  it  would  be  to  a  modern  Englishman  if 
the  German  army  should  lay  England  waste, 
and  London  on  heaps,  a  smoking  ruin,  and 
of  Westminster  Abbey  should  leave  not  one 
stone  upon  another. 

We  do  not  insist  that  those  commentators 


156  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

are  right  who  see  in  the  destruction  of  Jeru- 
salem the  literal  fulfilment  of  all  the  Apoc- 
alyptic prophecies  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments; but  to  a  vivid  historical  imagination 
it  seems  amply  sufficient  to  meet  the  thought 
in  the  mind  of  Jesus  when  he  foretold  the 
destruction  of  the  temple  and  the  tribulation 
that  was  to  come  upon  all  flesh. 

At  all  events,  the  most  earnest  believer  in 
the  impending  advent  of  Christ  would  not 
insist  that  this  doctrine  is  a  part  of  essential 
Christianity,  or  deny  the  name  Christian  to 
one  who  finds  in  the  recurring  outbursts  of 
spiritual  power  in  human  history  the  essen- 
tial fulfilment  of  the  Christian  hope. 

IV 

The  expectation  of  a  Messianic  Kingdom 
to  be  inaugurated  by  the  spectacular  return 
of  Christ  has  been  transformed  in  the  Chris- 
tian consciousness  of  our  day  into  the  hope 
of  Christianizing  the  social  order. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  such  a  hope  would 
have  been  meaningless  to  the  apostolic  age. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    HOPE  157 

The  early  church  was  recruited  largely  from 
the  lower  orders  of  society.  To  dream  of 
exerting  an  influence  upon  the  whole  political 
structure  of  mankind  so  great  as  to  transform 
its  fundamental  political  theory  and  recon- 
struct the  entire  social  and  economic  fabric 
was  beyond  the  power  of  the  human  imagina- 
tion in  its  wildest  flights.  The  most  which 
could  be  hoped  for  was  to  rescue  as  many  as 
possible  out  of  a  doomed  world,  and  to  await 
the  judgment  of  God  to  overthrow  the  an- 
cient order  of  things  and  to  create  a  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth 
righteousness. 

It  is  otherwise  with  us  who  stand  upon  the 
pinnacle  of  nineteen  centuries  of  historical 
development.  We  have  seen  the  old  order 
reconstructed  not  once  or  twice. 

The  Roman  Empire  which  in  the  first 
century  seemed  as  stable  as  the  everlasting 
hills  long  since  crumbled  into  dust.  The 
ecclesiastical  empire  which  was  set  up  on 
its  ruins  to  maintain  the  outlines  of  a  social 
order  amid  the  chaos  of  the  barbarian  inva- 


158  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

sion  has  likewise  long  since  disappeared. 
The  institutions  of  feudalism  which  suc- 
ceeded in  turn  gave  place  to  the  autocratic 
empires  of  France  and  Spain;  and  now  at 
last  we  behold  the  whole  world  under  the 
sway  of  democracy. 

But  when  we  look  at  this  development  we 
see  that  democracy  itself  is  one  of  the  fruits 
of  Christianity;  that  it  was  implicit  in  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  and  Paul  and  that  it  is  the 
leaven  of  the  Christian  evaluation  of  human 
nature  which  has  been  working  throughout 
all  the  centuries  to  bring  about  this  result. 

In  their  dismay  over  the  terrible  catastro- 
phe that  has  befallen  the  world  men  are 
telling  us  that  Christianity  has  broken  down 
and  that  the  boasted  progress  of  civilization 
is  an  illusion. 

Yet  this  very  war  bears  eloquent  witness 
to  the  immeasurable  influence  which  Chris- 
tianity has  exerted  upon  human  ideals,  when 
we  consider  the  strenuous  efforts  made  by 
all  parties  to  the  conflict  to  justify  themselves 


THE    CHRISTIAN    HOPE  159 

at  the  bar  of  the  world's  conscience.  The 
very  dismay  which  has  fallen  upon  humanity, 
the  feeling  that  this  war  is  somehow  a  dis- 
grace to  mankind,  the  protest  of  all  the  peoples 
that  it  was  forced  upon  them,  and  that  they 
are  fighting  in  self-defense  against  the  un- 
warranted aggressions  of  their  neighbors,  tells 
of  a  new  motive  and  a  new  spirit  in  human 
life. 

A  hundred  years  ago  war  was  still  an  honor- 
able profession  and  no  nation  would  have 
dreamed  of  apologizing  for  being  engaged  in 
it.  Not  only  has  the  world  progressed  by 
attempting  to  mitigate  the  severities  of  war, 
so  that  captives  are  no  longer  sold  into  slav- 
ery and  the  women  and  children  of  the  con- 
quered put  to  the  edge  of  the  sword;  but 
war  itself  has  become  a  horrible  thing,  a 
crime  against  humanity.  Nothing  could  bear 
such  powerful  witness  to  the  hold  of  the 
Prince  of  Peace  upon  the  heart  of  the  modern 
world. 

The  economic  and  social  progress  of  man- 
kind has  been  not  less  remarkable. 


160  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

The  majority  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
Roman  Empire  were  slaves.  Our  writers 
on  industrial  problems  indulge  in  much  lurid 
rhetoric  over  wage-slavery  and  the  condition 
of  the  poor;  but  one  has  only  to  read  the 
economic  history  of  even  a  few  centuries  ago 
to  realize  how  vast  has  been  the  progress  of 
social  justice. 

The  recognition  of  the  profound  influence 
already  exerted  by  Christianity  upon  human 
society  has  enlarged  the  Christian  hope ;  and 
prophets  to-day  are  dreaming,  not  of  the  re- 
turn of  Christ  to  destroy  the  world  and  set 
up  a  new  and  miraculous  heavenly  kingdom. 
They  are  dreaming  of  a  world  of  righteous- 
ness and  peace,  of  brotherhood,  of  mutual 
service;  of  a  world  where  poverty  shall  be 
abolished,  where  every  child  shall  be  born  into 
a  heritage  of  physical  comfort  and  intellectual 
opportunity;  a  world  in  which  the  ancient 
abuses  of  the  social  order  shall  have  been  done 
away  and  the  whole  level  of  humanity  lifted 
to  the  plane  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

No  doubt,  this  dream  seems  to  many  but 


THE    CHRISTIAN    HOPE  161 

an  idle  tale.  We  do  not  expect  its  advent 
to-day  or  to-morrow.  But  we,  too,  may  com- 
fort our  hearts  with  the  reflection  that  one 
day  is  with  the  Lord  as  a  thousand  years.  A 
mushroom  will  spring  up  in  a  night.  If  you 
are  fortunate  some  October  morning,  you  may 
see  one  push  its  way  through  the  dead  leaves 
and  spring  before  your  eyes  to  its  full  growth. 
But  you  cannot,  by  watching,  trace  the  devel- 
opment of  an  acorn  into  an  oak  tree. 

A  baboon  and  a  Hottentot  baby  may  be 
born  the  same  day  in  an  African  jungle,  but 
the  ape  will  be  full-grown  and  the  grandfather 
of  a  generation  of  apes  before  the  baby  has 
grown  to  maturity.  We  need  not  wonder 
that  the  Almighty  takes  many  centuries  for 
the  development  of  humanity  if  He  took  a 
thousand  ages  to  fit  the  earth  for  the  habita- 
tion of  man. 

Christianity  faces  the  future  with  an  un- 
conquerable faith,  believing  that  every  up- 
ward step  in  the  history  of  mankind  hitherto 
is  the  promise  of  that  far-off  divine  event  to 
which  the  whole  creation  moves. 


162  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

V 

Yet  even  this  does  not  exhaust  the  Chris- 
tian hope,  for  Christianity  insists  on  inter- 
preting life  not  only  in  terms  of  the  whole 
race  as  an  organic  unit,  growing  through 
the  centuries  and  learning  its  lessons  until 
it  shall  attain  ultimately  the  full  stature  of 
maturity,  but  equally  in  terms  of  the  individ- 
ual. It  insists  that  every  man  is  a  child  of 
the  Infinite,  and  it  refuses  to  measure  his 
life  and  destiny  by  months  and  years. 

This  is  the  meaning  of  those  visions  of 
Paradise  which  cheered  the  hearts  of  our 
fathers.  The  hope  of  heaven  is  not  a  reward 
to  bribe  men  into  virtue;  it  is  simply  the 
declaration  that  their  individual  personal 
lives  are  not  meaningless  or  fruitless;  but 
that  every  longing  and  aspiration  of  the 
human  soul  is  a  promise  of  ultimate  fruition, 
a  draft  upon  the  boundless  resources  of  Al- 
mighty God. 

The  shortness  of  human  life  is,  after  all, 
the  supreme  tragedy  of  mankind.     We  start 


THE    CHRISTIAN    HOPE  163 

out  in  youth  with  such  lofty  ideals,  only  to 
sink  into  the  sad  disillusionment  of  the 
middle  years  as  we  realize  how  far  short  we 
have  fallen.  We  send  forth  our  hearts  in 
friendship  and  love,  only  to  discover  that 
chance  and  change  are  busy  ever ;  that  with 
the  best  will  in  the  world  our  friendships  are 
marred  by  human  selfishness,  are  interrupted 
by  the  shifting  scenes  of  our  pilgrimage; 
that  even  the  deepest  and  sweetest  human 
affections  do  not  fulfil  their  promise  to  our 
hearts;  and  death  drops  its  curtain  over  all, 
sending  us  down  the  afternoon  slope  of  life 
lonely  and  bereaved. 

"The  boast  of  heraldry,  the  pomp  of  power, 

And  all  that  beauty,  all  that  wealth  e'er  gave, 
Awaits  alike  th'  inevitable  hour  : 

The  paths  of  glory  lead  but  to  the  grave." 

An  immeasurable  sadness  has  fallen  upon 
the  world  in  these  last  days  through  the 
eclipse  of  the  immortal  hope.  Under  the 
spell  of  the  scientific  method  men  have  re- 
fused to  believe  anything  which  could  not 
be  demonstrated,   and  the  contemplation  of 


164  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

that  bourne  whence  no  traveler  returns  has 
chilled  and  darkened  their  minds. 

But  Christianity  refuses  to  be  browbeaten 
by  the  tyranny  of  the  material  world.  Basing 
its  faith  on  its  experience  of  the  love  of  God, 
on  the  spiritual  power  of  Jesus  Christ  —  which 
certainly  was  not  confined  within  the  tomb  in 
Joseph's  garden,  whatever  men  may  think  of 
his  physical  resurrection  —  Christianity  faces 
the   future    with    inextinguishable   hope   and 

joy. 

The  Christian  belief  in  immortality  does 
not  rest  on  the  evidence  collected  by  the 
Society  for  Psychic  Research,  but  on  the 
veracity  of  God,  on  the  trustworthiness  of 
spiritual  instincts,  on  the  conviction  that  the 
Universe  is  not  bankrupt. 

Men  no  longer  paint  glowing  pictures  of 
heaven.  Streets  of  gold  and  gates  of  pearl 
have  become  mere  figures  of  speech.  A 
harp  and  crown  no  longer  figure  in  the  hopes 
of  saints.  Nevertheless  the  Christian  belief 
is  as  simple  and  direct  to-day  as  it  has  ever 
been.     It   simply   dares   to   believe   that   the 


THE   CHRISTIAN   HOPE  165 

loftiest  ideals  and  purest  aspirations  of  men 
will  be  fulfilled,  and  that  the  love  upon 
which  death  lays  so  rude  a  hand  will  blossom 
into  a  fairer  and  deeper  joy  when  the  day 
breaks  and  the  shadows  flee  away. 

"There  shall  never  be  one  lost  good  !     What  was,  shall 
live  as  before ; 
The  evil  is  null,  is  naught,  is  silence  implying  sound ; 
What  was  good,  shall  be  good,  with,  for  evil,  so  much 
good  more ; 
On  the  earth  the  broken  arcs ;  in  the  heaven,  a  perfect 
round. 

All  we  have  willed  or  hoped  or  dreamed  of  good,  shall 
exist ; 
Not  its  semblance,  but  itself;  no  beauty,  nor  good, 
nor  power 
Whose  voice  has  gone  forth,  but  each  survives  for  the 
melodist 
When  eternity  affirms  the  conception  of  an  hour. 
The  high  that  proved  too  high,  the  heroic  for  earth  too 
hard, 
The  passion  that  left  the  ground  to  lose  itself  in  the 
sky, 
Are  music  sent  up  to  God  by  the  lover  and  the  bard ; 
Enough  that  he  heard   it  once :    we  shall  hear  it 
by-and-by." 

—  Browning,  "  Abt  Vogler." 


VII 

THE   CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

We  have  summed  up  the  main  outlines  of 
Christianity ;  its  fundamental  convictions, 
its  ethical  demands,  its  individual  and  social 
ideals.  It  remains  to  ask,  what  is  the  rela- 
tion of  the  Church  to  all  this  ? 

Are  we  to  say  with  some  that  the  church 
has  been  the  chief  obstacle  to  the  spread  of 
essential  Christianity;  that  it  has  from  the 
beginning  failed  to  understand  its  Lord,  and 
that  the  nineteen  centuries  of  ecclesiasticism 
have  been  utterly  abortive?  Or  are  we  on 
the  other  hand  to  identify  Christianity  and 
the  church,  and  to  regard  the  indifference  or 
hostility  which  the  present  age  displays  to- 
ward the  church  as  the  chief  sign  of  its  spirit- 
ual decay? 

That  the  present  time  is  marked  by  an 
attitude  of  indifference  rising  in  some  quarters 

1G6 


THE    CHRISTIAN    CHURCH        167 

to  bitter  hostility  toward  organized  Chris- 
tianity there  can  be  no  doubt.  It  not  in- 
frequently happens  that  in  gatherings  of 
working  men  the  name  of  the  church  is  hissed 
while  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  is  met  with 
cheers.  Socialism  in  the  main  is  bitterly 
hostile  to  the  church.  The  labor  movement 
is  largely  indifferent.  Labor  unions  hold 
their  meetings  on  Sunday,  and  it  is  the  general 
testimony  not  only  of  labor  leaders  but  of  the 
leaders  of  the  church  itself  that  those  who 
work  with  their  hands  are  seldom  found  with- 
in its  doors. 

Conditions  in  Europe  have  during  the  last 
quarter  of  a  century  been  much  worse  than 
in  America.  The  Catholic  Church  has  been 
bitterly  hated  in  Italy  and  almost  driven  out 
of  France.  In  Germany  the  great  mass  of 
the  population  has  been  estranged  from  the 
church.  But  even  in  this  country  statistics 
reveal  a  pitifully  limited  growth  in  proportion 
to  the  amount  of  time  and  money  expended. 
Church  statistics  are  notoriously  inaccurate, 
but  they  err  if  at  all  mainly  on  the  side  of 


168  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

optimism ;  yet  even  so  they  indicate  that  the 
growth  of  the  church  has  not  kept  pace  with 
that  of  the  population.  The  gain  in  church 
membership  for  1914  in  the  United  States 
was  something  more  than  three  quarters 
of  a  million,  or  about  two  per  cent;  while 
the  population  increases  something  more  than 
three  per  cent  each  year. 

Two  or  three  years  ago  1600  churches  in 
the  state  of  Illinois  were  reported  as  having 
closed  their  doors  in  a  single  year.  The  prob- 
lem of  the  rural  community  and  of  the  small 
town  rivals  that  of  the  city,  where  down- 
town churches  by  the  thousand  have  been 
sold  and  turned  into  motion  picture  houses 
or  garages  while  the  church  followed  its  more 
prosperous  members  uptown. 

Mission  boards  in  all  denominations  appeal 
ever  more  earnestly  for  support,  yet  most  of 
them  have  during  the  past  few  years  been 
compelled  to  face  large  deficits  or  cut  down 
their  work. 

The  total  seating  capacity  of  the  churches 
in  an  average  city  would  probably  not  accom- 


THE    CHRISTIAN    CHURCH        169 

modate  a  fourth  of  the  population,  yet  not 
one  church  in  twenty  is  filled  to  its  capacity 
excepting  on  Easter  Sunday  or  Christmas. 
The  Sunday  evening  service  has  become  the 
bugbear  of  ministers  and  an  ever-increasing 
problem  for  the  average  church. 

The  motion  picture  show,  the  Sunday 
theatre  and  ball  game,  the  automobile  and 
the  Sunday  paper  have  been  blamed  for  this 
state  of  affairs,  but  the  condition  itself  is 
all  but  universally  admitted. 

There  is  a  widespread  feeling  that  this 
condition  is  due  not  so  much  to  religious  in- 
difference as  to  the  failure  of  the  church  to 
meet  the  spiritual  needs  of  the  time. 

A  brilliant  professor  in  a  leading  Univer- 
sity, in  reply  to  a  questionnaire  regarding  the 
attitude  of  University  men  to  the  church, 
replied,  "A  lover  of  religion  will  avoid  all 
the  churches,  liberal  and  orthodox,  as  a 
lover  of  wine  would  avoid  empty  bottles." 
Perhaps  this  particular  professor  was  more 
interested  in  making  an  epigram  than  in 
stating  the  exact  truth,  but  there  can  be  no 


170  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

doubt  that  many  essentially  religious  men 
both  among  the  educated  and  the  working 
classes  are  estranged  from  the  church. 

It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  we  must  dis- 
tinguish between  Christianity  and  churchian- 
ity9  and  realize  that  the  failure  of  the  church 
to  hold  its  own  under  the  conditions  of  pres- 
ent-day life  is  not  necessarily  the  failure  of 
the  Christian  faith.  But  while  this  is  true, 
the  insistent  demands  of  the  historical  church 
for  recognition  as  the  official  custodian  of 
spiritual  truth  no  less  than  the  equally  em- 
phatic insistence  of  her  critics  that  she  be 
cast  out  as  a  failure  makes  it  necessary  for 
us  to  consider  earnestly  the  question  of  the 
real  place  of  the  church  in  human  life,  and 
her  function  in  the  religious  training  and 
development  of  mankind. 

With  our  main  contention  hitherto  I  fancy 
the  great  majority  of  Christian  teachers  in 
all  the  churches  would  find  themselves  in 
substantial  agreement.  Doubtless  many  of 
them  would  place  the  emphasis  in  a  different 
place  at  one   point  or  another.     Some  may 


THE   CHRISTIAN   CHURCH        171 

feel  that  we  have  treated  the  authority 
of  the  New  Testament  somewhat  cavalierly. 
Possibly  many  would  regard  the  treatment 
of  other  important  matters,  such  as  the 
New  Birth  or  Eternal  Punishment,  as  hardly 
adequate. 

But  in  the  main  the  discussion  thus  far 
has  dealt  with  the  great  fundamental  con- 
victions and  ideals  in  which  all  Christendom, 
ancient  and  modern,  agrees.  If  a  few  things 
which  by  some  are  regarded  as  essential  have 
been  set  aside  or  inadequately  stressed,  it 
will  doubtless  be  admitted  that  the  matters 
herein  set  forth  constitute  the  main  factors 
of  essential  Christianity ;  and  that  any  man 
whose  life  displays  the  influence  of  these 
ideals  and  convictions  is  entitled  to  be  re- 
garded as  Christian. 

When  we  come  to  speak  of  the  church, 
however,  the  case  is  otherwise.  There  are 
two  main  conceptions  of  the  place  and  func- 
tion of  the  church  in  the  spiritual  history  of 
mankind,  and  they  are  so  essentially  con- 
tradictory   that    it    is    impossible    to    find    a 


172  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

common  denominator  for  them.  One  or  the 
other  must  be  definitely  set  aside. 

In  accordance,  therefore,  with  the  author's 
own  deepest  convictions  he  has  chosen  that 
view  of  the  church  which  seems  to  him  most 
clearly  justified  both  in  logic  and  experience. 
That  in  so  doing  he  must  part  company  with 
a  very  large  part  of  the  Christian  world  with 
whose  principal  beliefs  and  spiritual  aims  he 
finds  himself  otherwise  in  entire  harmony 
is  a  matter  of  profound  regret. 

But  if  we  are  to  find  a  complete  and  satis- 
factory answer  to  the  question,  What  is  a 
Christian?  we  must  face  the  problem  of  the 
Christian  organism.  One  can  only  be  loyal 
to  one's  own  convictions  and  set  forth  that 
interpretation  of  organized  Christianity  which 
seems  to  him  to  appeal  most  widely  to  the 
common  sense  of  mankind  and  to  be  destined 
to  fill  the  largest  place  in  the  social  and 
spiritual  history  of  the  future. 

Rudyard  Kipling  once  wrote, 

"If  England  was  what  England  seems, 
And  not  the  England  of  our  dreams ; 


THE    CHRISTIAN    CHURCH        173 

But  only  putty,  brass  and  paint, 

How  quick  we'd  chuck  'er,  but  she  aint ! " 

Every  patriot  realizes  the  force  of  the  lines. 

No  nation  measures  up  to  the  ideals  of  its 
citizens.  America  seems  to  the  casual  ob- 
server to  be  made  up  of  cheap  politics,  of 
superficial  statesmanship,  of  graft  and  chi- 
cane, of  incompetence  and  selfishness  in  public 
office,  of  greed  and  materialism  in  private  life ; 
yet  this  is  not  the  America  we  love. 

For  the  America  of  our  dreams  is  the  land 
of  the  free  and  the  home  of  the  brave.  It 
stands  for  equal  opportunity,  for  universal 
justice,  for  democracy,  the  government  of 
the  people,  by  the  people  and  for  the  people. 
It  is  for  the  sake  of  these  ideals  which  find 
such  fragmentary  and  imperfect  realization 
in  our  actual  political  history  that  we  love 
the  flag  and  stand  ready  to  sacrifice  our  all 
for  our  country's  good. 

The  same  spirit  ought  in  reality  to  be  ap- 
plied to  the  Christian  church.  If  the  church 
were  what  the  church  seems,  and  not  the 
vision  of  our  dreams;    but  only  ecclesiastical 


174  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

politics  and  millinery,  and  bigotry,  and  empty 
pharisaism, 

"  How  quick  we'd  chuck  'er,  but  she  aint !  " 

For  the  church  is  nothing  after  all  but  the 
attempt  of  the  Christian  ideal  to  embody  it- 
self in  institutional  form  for  the  sake  of 
perpetuating  itself  in  the  world,  of  implant- 
ing its  ideals  in  the  human  heart,  and  stamp- 
ing its  impress  upon  human  history. 

That  such  an  embodiment  of  a  spiritual 
purpose  should  be  a  growing  organism,  for- 
ever imperfect  and  forever  under  the  neces- 
sity of  readjusting  itself  to  the  growing  life 
of  mankind,  ought  to  be  taken  for  granted. 

To  charge  the  mistakes  and  failures  of  the 
mediaeval  church  to  the  account  of  Chris- 
tianity is  as  unjust  as  to  charge  the  existing 
chaos  in  the  political  conditions  of  Mexico 
to  the  account  of  democracy. 

The  nature  of  the  church  has  been  often 
misunderstood  by  its  leaders  themselves. 
Claims  have  been  made  in  its  behalf  which 
cannot  be  justified  at  the  bar  of  history.     Mis- 


THE    CHRISTIAN    CHURCH        175 

takes  and  failures  have  marked  her  career 
from  the  beginning  even  until  now,  and  doubt- 
less will  continue  till  the  end  of  time. 

But  when  all  is  said  the  church  remains  in 
essence  and  ideal  the  body  which  the  spirit 
of  Christ  is  forever  fashioning  for  itself  in 
the  life  of  the  world.  It  is  the  pillar  and 
stay  of  the  truth,  the  fulness  of  Him  that 
filleth  all  in  all. 

I 

It  is  necessary  to  look  for  a  moment  at 
certain  claims  which  have  been  made  in 
behalf  of  the  Church  which  seem  to  have 
been  set  aside  by  the  experience  of  man- 
kind. 

The  first  is  the  claim  to  wield  absolute 
authority. 

The  mediaeval  church  claimed  both  in- 
tellectual and  spiritual  authority.  It  alone 
had  power  to  declare  religious  truth,  and  to 
doubt  its  creed  or  dispute  its  interpretations 
of  truth  was  a  mortal  sin.  It  claimed  equally 
the  right  to  declare  the  ultimate  standards  of 


176  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

right  and  wrong,  to  punish  the  guilty,  to 
grant  indulgences,  to  forgive  the  penitent. 
To  the  Church  had  been  committed  the  keys 
of  heaven  and  hell;  whatsoever  she  bound 
was  bound  in  heaven,  whatsoever  she  loosed 
was  loosed  in  heaven. 

This  claim  was  apparently  founded  on  the 
words  of  Jesus.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  these 
words  are  to  be  interpreted  not  by  the  gram- 
mar and  the  dictionary  but  by  life  itself ; 
and  the  claim  of  the  church  must  be  justified 
at  the  bar  of  experience  if  it  is  to  stand. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  if  spiritual 
life  rests  upon  exact  information,  either  as  to 
theological  truth  or  as  to  ethical  demand, 
some  final  authority  is  necessary  to  declare 
that  truth.  President  Patton  of  Princeton 
has  defined  Christianity  as  a  piece  of  super- 
natural information,  and  declared  this  infor- 
mation to  be  contained  in  the  Scriptures. 

But  inasmuch  as  there  are  some  two  or 
three  hundred  Christian  sects  each  claiming 
to  have  the  correct  interpretation  of  the  Scrip- 
tures,  it  is  evident  that  nobody  knows  ex- 


THE    CHRISTIAN    CHURCH        177 

actly  what  that  piece  of  supernatural  infor- 
mation is,  and  there  must  be  some  court  of 
final  appeal. 

The  attempt  of  Protestantism  to  rest  its 
case  upon  the  authority  of  an  infallible 
Bible  has  broken  down  completely,  and  there 
is  no  stopping  place  short  of  an  infallible 
church ;  with  power  to  declare  not  only  what 
was  true  nineteen  hundred  years  ago,  but 
equally  what  that  truth  means  in  relation  to 
the  new  conditions  of  the  present  time. 

But  the  infallibility  of  the  church  equally 
breaks  down,  if  for  no  other  reason,  because 
an  infallibility  which  has  to  justify  itself  to  the 
fallible  reason  of  the  individual  before  it  can 
get  its  decrees  accepted  is  practically  useless. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  as  we  have  seen,  Chris- 
tianity is  not  a  piece  of  supernatural  infor- 
mation at  all.  It  is  a  spiritual  ideal  which 
carries  with  it  a  spiritual  interpretation  of  life 
and  reality  and  which  commends  itself  to  the 
spiritual  intuitions  of  humanity  and  stands  or 
falls  by  its  power  to  satisfy  the  needs  of  the 
human  soul. 


178  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

Such  a  faith  has  no  need  of  an  external 
authority.  No  infallibility  whether  of  Pope 
or  Bible  can  be  of  the  slightest  service  to  it, 
and  the  attempt  to  find  such  infallibility  in 
church  or  book  has  been  one  of  the  most 
serious  obstacles  to  the  progress  of  the  truth. 

The  notion  of  an  infallible  and  authorita- 
tive church  dies  hard,  but  it  has  been  def- 
initely set  aside  by  the  experience  of  the 
last  thousand  years ;  and  the  future  lies 
with  that  growing  and  flexible  organization 
of  spiritual  impulses  and  ideals  which  shall 
most  fully  and  freely  represent  the  spirit  of 
Jesus  Christ. 

The  second  is  the  sacerdotal  interpretation 
of  the  church,  its  claim  to  be  the  sole  deposi- 
tory of  spiritual  power  and  grace. 

According  to  this  point  of  view  the 
sacraments  of  the  church  are  not  merely 
the  outward  and  visible  signs  of  an  inward 
and  spiritual  grace,  but  they  are  efficacious; 
that  is  to  say,  the  performance  of  the  rite 
at   the   hands   of   the    authorized    official    of 


THE     CHRISTIAN    CHURCH       179 

the  church  is  fraught  with  miraculous  spiritual 
power. 

In  this  case  everything  depends  upon  the 
legitimacy  of  the  priesthood  who  exercise 
this  power.  It  was  committed  at  the  begin- 
ning by  Jesus  to  his  apostles,  and  can  only 
be  possessed  by  those  upon  whom  the  hands 
of  the  apostolic  succession  have  been  laid. 

This  is  the  High  Church  ecclesiastical  doc- 
trine. Like  the  infallibility  of  the  church 
it  claims  to  rest  upon  the  words  of  Jesus. 

But  the  principles  which  we  have  found  to 
be  necessary  for  the  understanding  of  his 
teaching  throw  doubt  upon  the  doctrine  at 
the  outset,  and  the  experience  of  history 
tends  to  confirm  this  doubt.  If  this  view 
were  correct,  we  should  have  a  right  to  expect 
those  communions  which  claim  the  apostolic 
succession  to  have  a  monopoly  of  spiritual 
power,  a  thing  which  the  advocates  of  sacerdo- 
talism in  their  wildest  moments  have  not 
dared  to  assert.  So  far  is  this  from  being 
true  that  the  greatest  spiritual  advance  in 
Christian     history     has     often     been     made 


180  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

through  those  whom  the  sacerdotal  party 
has  refused  to  recognize  as  Christian  at  all. 
Add  to  this  the  fact  that  sober  history  can 
find  no  trace  of  the  apostolic  succession,  and 
the  doctrine  becomes  one  more  of  the  never- 
ending  succession  of  misapprehensions  which 
have   clogged    the   spiritual    development   of 

mankind. 

II 

Setting  aside  these  excessive  claims  to 
authority  and  spiritual  power  which  have 
wrought  so  much  harm  in  religious  history, 
and  interpreting  the  church  in  the  broadest 
sense  as  organized  or  institutional  Chris- 
tianity, we  must  further  recognize  the  serious 
weaknesses  and  mistakes  which  have  hindered 
its  true  mission. 

The  first  is  the  tendency  which  the  Chris- 
tian church  shares  with  every  organization 
to  become  an  end  in  itself  rather  than  the 
means  to  a  larger  end. 

Secular  history  bears  abundant  witness  to 
this  tendency.  Political  parties  which  were 
born   in   the   enthusiasm    of    a    great    social 


THE     CHRISTIAN    CHURCH       181 

movement  are  forever  degenerating  into  po- 
litical machines,  having  no  aim  greater  than 
to  perpetuate  their  power  and  to  distrib- 
ute the  spoils  of  office  among  their  loyal 
henchmen. 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  this  fate 
not  only  overtook  the  Catholic  Church  in 
the  Middle  Ages,  and  necessitated  the  Refor- 
mation in  order  to  set  free  the  spiritual  life 
which  was  being  dwarfed  and  cramped  under 
the  incrustations  of  ecclesiastical  power ;  but 
that  the  Protestant  churches  which  were  born 
of  the  spiritual  enthusiasm  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, or  of  great  revival  movements  such  as 
puritanism  and  the  Wesleyan  Revival,  have 
fallen  under  the  same  condemnation. 

Too  often  the  ministers  of  the  church  have 
become  mere  ecclesiastics,  contenting  them- 
selves with  running  the  machinery  of  the 
church  and  building  up  its  influence  and 
power  in  the  world,  forgetful  of  the  larger 
social  and  spiritual  ends  which  were  com- 
mitted to  its  charge. 

This  peril    is    enhanced  when  the  church 


182  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

becomes  too  closely  linked  to  the  political 
life  of  the  state,  until  it  becomes  merely  an- 
other department  of  the  political  machinery. 
But  even  in  free  America  the  church  has 
not  been  free  from  this  fault. 

The  second  failure  of  the  church  is  its 
tendency  to  conservatism. 

The  more  vital  and  important  any  truth  in 
the  life  of  men,  the  slower  they  are  to  change 
their  method  of  interpretation.  Religion  is 
concerned  with  matters  affecting  the  very 
destiny  of  the  soul.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at,  therefore,  that  in  matters  of  religious 
opinion  men  should  be  more  conservative 
than  at  any  other  point  in  their  intellectual 
life. 

This  is  not  an  unmixed  evil.  It  has  often 
served  as  a  steadying  force  in  the  life  of  the 
world ;  and  always  it  has  this  beneficent 
result,  that  it  compels  men  to  think  their 
thought  through,  and  to  make  sure  that  in 
their  enthusiasm  for  new  ways  of  thinking 
and  in  their  endeavor  to  interpret  new  ex- 
periences  and   deeper   knowledge   they   shall 


THE    CHRISTIAN    CHURCH        183 

not  lose  sight  of  the  largest  and  most  signifi- 
cant bearings  of  their  thought  upon  the  ethi- 
cal and  spiritual  life  of  the  race. 

But  when  this  healthy  conservatism  of 
humanity  in  matters  pertaining  to  the  spirit- 
ual life  becomes  a  narrow  and  hide-bound 
bigotry,  then  the  new  wine  of  the  spirit  must 
burst  the  old  bottles  of  dogma  and  creed. 

The  enormous  advance  in  knowledge  which 
has  been  afforded  by  the  science  of  the  last 
hundred  years,  and  the  new  ethical  and 
social  problems  which  have  resulted  from  in- 
dustrial progress,  have  made  necessary  the 
re-statement  of  the  whole  body  of  Christian 
truth  in  the  terms  of  present-day  thought 
and  life ;  and  the  time  has  come  when  the 
natural  conservatism  of  the  church  must  be 
cast  aside  in  the  spirit  of  an  earnest  and 
reverent  eagerness  to  discover  the  larger 
meanings  of  the  Christian  message. 

If  the  church  fails  to  meet  this  situation, 
and  endeavors  to  restrain  the  growing  power 
of  progressive  thought,  the  increased  pres- 
sure thus  brought  about  is  likely  to  result 


184  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

in  an  explosion  which  might  be  disastrous  to 
the  ancient  machine. 

Once  more,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
church  has  failed  to  adjust  itself  to  the  new 
conditions  of  life  which  have  resulted  from 
the  industrial  and  social  revolution  of  the 
past  century,  and  that  in  many  ways  it  no 
longer  ministers  to  the  real  needs  of  humanity. 

In  its  reaction  from  the  shallow  worldli- 
ness  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies evangelical  Christianity  has  tended 
to  become  narrowly  pietistic;  and  to  act  as 
though  men  had  no  interests  other  than  the 
spiritual  and  no  duty  in  life  except  to  prepare 
for  death. 

As  a  result  it  has  left  out  of  account  all  the 
varied  and  complex  social  needs  of  the  world. 
It  has  ignored  the  world  of  culture.  Its 
attitude  toward  amusements  has  been  chiefly 
negative;  and  it  has  not  infrequently  laid 
the  ban  of  its  severe  displeasure  upon  those 
who  have  endeavored  to  interpret  its  ethical 
teachings  in  the  interest  of  social  regenera- 
tion.    The   minister   who    interested   himself 


THE    CHRISTIAN    CHURCH        185 

in  the  housing  conditions  of  his  people,  or 
attacked  the  most  glaring  abuses  of  the  in- 
dustrial order,  has  been  told  to  leave  these 
things  to  the  secular  authorities  and  preach 
the  simple  gospel. 

No  thoughtful  man  can  observe  the  signs 
of  the  times  without  realizing  that  the  church 
must  mend  her  ways  at  this  point  or  be  cast 
as  rubbish  to  the  void. 

The  spiritual  interests  of  mankind  are 
paramount,  but  they  are  intimately  wrapped 
up  with  the  normal  interests  of  his  daily  life. 
Christianity  is  for  the  whole  man  or  it  is 
nothing  at  all.  It  must  not  only  make  him 
ready  for  heaven  but  it  must  bring  a  heaven 
upon  earth. 

It  is  the  task  of  Christianity  to-day  not  only 
to  re-translate  its  spiritual  message  in  terms 
which  the  common  man  can  understand ;  but 
to  attack  the  abuses  of  the  social  order;  to 
proclaim  in  no  uncertain  fashion  the  ethical 
demands  of  Jesus  in  terms  not  of  the  thirteenth 
century  nor  of  the  eighteenth  but  of  the  twen- 
tieth ;    to  elevate  and  purify  the  daily  life  of 


186  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

the  world  in  all  its  manifold  and  complex  in- 
terests, not  only  industrial  and  commercial 
but  educational. 

It  must  even  direct  its  attention  to  the 
social  life,  and  foster  such  normal  and  whole- 
some opportunities  for  recreation  and  pleas- 
ure as  shall  minister  to  the  largest  well-being 
of  mankind. 

The  church  must  enlarge  her  conception  to 
make  room  for  this  work.  She  must  adjust 
her  machinery,  or  reconstruct  it  if  need  be, 
until  it  is  fitted  to  minister  to  the  actual 
needs  of  living  men  and  women.  Merely 
to  condemn  the  modern  world  because  it  is 
too  interested  and  absorbed  in  its  own  life 
to  hear  her  call  is  futile.  Her  Master's 
method  was  to  mingle  with  all  men,  to  seek 
out  human  need  wherever  it  was  to  be  found ; 
and  he  bade  his  church  go  out  into  the  high- 
ways and  hedges  and  bring  the  needy  to  his 
feast. 

The  final  weakness  of  the  church  is  to  be 
found    in    the    failings    of    church    members. 

It  is  useless  to  ignore  the  fact  that  the  world 


THE    CHRISTIAN    CHURCH        187 

insists  on  judging  the  church  member  by  a 
higher  standard  than  that  which  it  applies 
to  the  man  in  the  street.  This  may  be  unfair ; 
but  it  is  human,  and  it  cannot  be  escaped. 
If  church  members  indulge  in  shady  business 
transactions,  in  uncharitable  and  malicious 
gossip;  if  they  fail  to  adapt  their  business 
methods  to  the  demands  of  the  social  ideal ; 
if  they  lower  their  daily  life  to  the  standards 
of  the  world  about  them,  and  fail  to  impress 
mankind  with  the  grace  and  sweetness  of 
their  Master's  spirit ;  the  world  sees  and  takes 
note,  and  the  church  must  bear  the  burden 
of  their  unworthy  lives. 

Due  allowance  should  be  made  for  the  fact 
that  the  man  in  the  street  sometimes  hides 
himself  behind  the  weaknesses  of  church 
members,  and  to  that  end  often  accuses  them 
unjustly.  But  when  all  is  said  we  must  not 
fail  to  recognize  the  responsibility  that  rests 
upon  the  individual  member  of  the  church 
to  bring  his  life  into  harmony  with  the  ideals 
he  professes,  lest  he  stand  convicted  of  a 
practical  unfaith  which  not  only  imperils  his 


188  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

own  moral  character  but  becomes  an  almost 

insuperable  obstacle  in  the  path  of  the  cause 

he  represents. 

Ill 

But  after  every  concession  has  been  made 
to  the  critics  of  organized  Christianity,  it 
remains  true  that  the  world  owes  an  immeas- 
urable debt  to  the  Christian  Church  as  the 
custodian  of  its  loftiest  ethical  ideals  and  the 
minister  of  spiritual  progress.  In  spite  of 
the  fact  that  the  church  has  frequently  mis- 
apprehended her  own  nature  and  mission ; 
that  she  has  shared  the  limitations  and  failings 
of  all  human  institutions ;  that  her  history 
has  been  marred  by  much  that  was  out  of 
harmony  with  her  own  ideals  and  so  has 
weakened  her  influence  and  paralyzed  her 
own  most  earnest  efforts,  the  church  remains 
the  one  institution  in  human  life  which  has 
stood  for  God  and  righteousness,  which  has 
borne  witness  to  the  worth  and  dignity  of 
human  nature  and  the  immeasurable  signif- 
icance of  human  destiny ;  the  one  organiza- 
tion   which    has   its   root  in  the  purpose   to 


THE    CHRISTIAN    CHURCH       189 

serve  mankind,  and  whose  influence  in  the 
main  has  been  to  inspire  and  uplift  the 
human  race. 

In  spite  of  the  narrowness  and  bigotry  of 
mediaeval  theology;  in  spite  of  the  abuses 
of  ecclesiasticism ;  in  spite  of  the  Crusades 
and  the  Inquisition,  of  worldly  popes  and 
unworthy  priests,  of  paganism  in  worship  and 
laxity  in  morals,  the  Christian  church  was 
sole  custodian  of  spiritual  light  and  life 
throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  and  handed 
down  the  torch  to  the  modern  world. 

And  to-day,  in  spite  of  all  her  weakness  and 
limitation,  in  spite  of  the  sectarianism  which 
divides  her  forces,  in  spite  of  the  narrowness 
and  bigotry  of  ecclesiastics  and  the  timidity 
of  religious  leaders,  in  spite  of  theological 
conservatism  and  lack  of  aggressive  leadership, 
of  the  mistakes  of  preachers  and  the  weakness 
of  church  members,  the  church  remains  the 
one  institution  in  the  civilization  of  the  world 
whose  supreme  aim  it  is  to  establish  the 
Kingdom  of  God  and  to  lift  mankind  out  of 
its    moral    darkness    and    social    degradation 


190  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

into  the  light  and  joy  of  spiritual  power  and 
moral  victory. 

This  world  is  so  constituted  that  every 
human  ideal  necessarily  seeks  to  embody 
itself  in  institutional  form.  It  is  impossible 
for  great  truths  to  hang  suspended  in  the  air 
or  merely  to  exercise  a  vague  and  general 
influence   upon   public   opinion. 

Political  truth  creates  political  parties; 
intellectual  truth  founds  schools  and  estab- 
lishes professorships  ;  economic  truth  organizes 
itself  into  industries  and  commercial  bodies ; 
social  truth  is  forever  forming  institutions 
such  as  charity  organization  societies  and 
peace  conferences,  in  order  that  its  ideals  may 
have  a  local  habitation  and  a  name  and  may 
be  brought  to  bear  directly  upon  the  organized 
life  of  the  world. 

To  suppose  that  the  great  creative  spiritual 
ideals  of  Christianity  could  be  content  to 
float  in  the  air  and  to  exert  only  a  general 
influence  upon  civilization  is  to  fail  to  appre- 
hend the  essential  genius  of  humanity.  As  a 
shellfish  secretes  his  shell   from  his  own  flesh 


THE    CHRISTIAN    CHURCH       191 

and  the  waters  with  which  he  is  surrounded, 
so  truth  is  forever  secreting  an  organized 
body  out  of  the  world  of  men ;  and  the  body 
which  Christian  truth  thus  creates  for  itself 
is  the  Christian  church. 

It  is  the  task  of  Christianity  to  teach  men 
its  lofty  and  inspiring  conceptions  of  philo- 
sophical truth.  It  must  train  them  in  the 
practice  of  Christian  virtues  and  the  pursuit 
of  its  moral  ideals. 

Especially  does  it  desire  to  implant  these 
things  in  the  hearts  and  lives  of  youth.  If 
political  democracy  finds  it  desirable  to  es- 
tablish public  schools,  to  inculcate  reverence 
for  the  flag  and  inspire  patriotic  devotion 
by  national  holidays  and  the  teaching  of 
national  history,  is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that 
Christianity  seeks  to  gather  the  youth  of  the 
world  into  its  institutional  life  in  order  that 
the  plastic  mind  of  childhood  should  be  in- 
formed and  directed  by  the  loftiest  ideals 
the  heart  of  man  has  conceived  ? 

It  is  the  task  of  Christianity  also  to  bear  its 
message  of  hope  to  all  who  have  fallen  under 


192  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

the  power  of  moral  evil;  who  through  igno- 
rance or  wilfulness  have  become  the  victims 
of  their  own  lower  nature  and  whose  lives 
are  degraded  and  distorted  thereby. 

Christianity  is  a  message  of  hope  to  all  the 
derelicts  which  strew  the  banks  of  the  stream 
of  life.  The  evangel  of  moral  regeneration 
and  victory  is  to  be  proclaimed  wherever 
human  hearts  are  human,  wherever  there  is 
sin  and  moral  weakness  and  spiritual  hunger. 
This  work  will  not  perform  itself,  but  needs 
the  backing  and  guidance  of  institutional  life. 

Added  to  this  is  the  task  of  holding  before 
the  world  the  inspiring  vision  of  the  Christian 
ideal,  of  comforting  men  in  their  sorrow  by  the 
vision  of  the  immortal  hope,  of  keeping  alight 
the  fires  of  social  enthusiasm  and  spiritual 
consecration  on  the  altars  of  the  world. 

Surely  no  greater  task  was  ever  laid  upon 
human  hearts  than  this.  Small  wonder  that 
men  have  forever  fallen  short  of  its  demand, 
that  their  mistakes  and  failures  have  weakened 
their  power  and  distorted  their  vision;  so 
that  from  age  to  age  the  spirit  of  the  Christian 


THE    CHRISTIAN    CHURCH       193 

faith  has  been  compelled  forever  to  seek  new 
channels  of  expression,  and  one  reformation 
after  another  has  broken  the  crust  of  institu- 
tional conservatism  and  burst  forth  in  a  new 
flood  of  spiritual  power  beyond  the  limits 
which  had  been  set  by  human  ignorance  and 
mistake. 

Small  wonder  that  in  spite  of  everything 
the  lofty  vision  of  a  church  without  spot  or 
wrinkle,  the  bride  of  Christ,  the  body  of  which 
he  is  the  head,  the  fulness  of  his  divine  life 
and  power,  should  have  held  the  imaginations 
of  earnest  men  in  all  ages  and  should  have 
power  still  to  inspire  them  with  the  largest 
devotion  and  the  most  eager  self-sacrifice. 

When  all  is  said  the  Christian  church,  like 
the  England  or  the  America  of  our  dreams,  is 
not  the  historic  organization  we  have  known ; 
but  the  loftier  and  purer  ideal  of  which  the 
historic  institution  is  the  imperfect  but  forever 
growing  embodiment. 

The  Christian  church  is  not  the  Catholic 
nor  the  Lutheran  nor  the  English  church; 
not  the  Presbyterian,  nor  the  Congregational- 


194  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

ist,  nor  the  Methodist.  It  is  all  of  these, 
and  it  is  more  than  all ;  for  it  is  the  ever- 
growing vision  of  the  Christian  ideal ;  forever 
purifying  itself ;  forever  becoming  more  deeply 
understood  ;  forever  challenging  mankind  to  a 
deeper  consecration  to  the  service  of  its  eternal 
purpose ;  and  forever  embodying  itself  in  the 
institutional  life  of  the  world  under  forms 
which  vary  from  age  to  age,  which  are  con- 
fessedly imperfect  and  subject  to  all  the  limita- 
tions of  the  flesh,  but  which  none  the  less  are 
worthy  of  the  deepest  reverence  and  most 
earnest  devotion  of  the  lover  of  his  kind, 
because  when  all  is  said  they  are  attempts  to 
express  the  loftiest  visions  and  the  worthiest 
ambitions  of  which  humanity  is  capable. 

In  The  Servant  in  the  House,  Manson, 
the  butler,  is  a  new  incarnation  of  the  Son  of 
Man.  He  comes  to  bring  to  his  brother,  the 
clergyman,  a  new  vision  of  the  Christian  hope, 
and  to  help  him  rebuild  his  church,  which  has 
fallen  into  disrepair.  The  crypt  of  the  old 
church  is  so  full  of  dead  men's  bones  that  the 


THE    CHRISTIAN    CHURCH        195 

life  of  the  whole  community  has  been  poisoned, 
and  men  have  ceased  to  find  in  the  church 
the  fountain  of  inspiration  and  life.  Before 
the  larger  work  can  be  accomplished  it  is 
necessary  for  the  minister  to  call  in  his  other 
brother,  the  drain-man,  and  get  rid  of  all  the 
dead  foulness  which  is  stifling  and  poisoning 
the  life  of  the  people.  But  it  is  also  necessary 
to  catch  a  vision  of  the  real  church  which  the 
Bishop  of  Humanity  is  undertaking  to  con- 
struct in  the  world.  Of  this  true  church, 
which  has  never  yet  been  realized  in  human  ex- 
perience, but  which  is  the  dream  and  purpose  of 
every  lover  of  the  Christian  ideal,  Manson  says  : 

"I  am  afraid  you  may  not  consider  it  an 
altogether  substantial  concern.  It  has  to  be 
seen  in  a  certain  way,  under  certain  conditions. 
Some  people  never  see  it  at  all.  You  must 
understand,  this  is  no  dead  pile  of  stones  and 
unmeaning  timber.     It  is  a  living  thing. 

"When  you  enter  it  you  hear  a  sound  —  a 
sound  as  of  some  mighty  poem  chanted. 
Listen  long  enough,  and  you  will  learn  that 
it  is  made  up  of  the  beating  of  human  hearts, 
of  the  nameless  music  of  men's  souls  —  that 
is,  if  you  have  ears.     If  you  have  eyes,  you 


196  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

will  presently  see  the  church  itself  —  a  loom- 
ing mystery  of  many  shapes  and  shadows, 
leaping  sheer  from  floor  to  dome.  The  work 
of  no  ordinary  builder  ! 

"  The  pillars  of  it  go  up  like  the  brawny 
trunks  of  heroes;  the  sweet  human  flesh  of 
men  and  women  is  molded  about  its  bulwarks 
strong,  impregnable :  the  terrible  spans  and 
arches  of  it  are  the  joined  hands  of  comrades ; 
and  up  in  the  heights  and  spaces  there  are 
inscribed  the  numberless  musings  of  all  the 
dreamers  of  the  world.  It  is  yet  building  — 
building  and  built  upon.  Sometimes  the 
work  goes  forward  in  deep  darkness :  some- 
times in  blinding  light :  now  beneath  the 
burden  of  unutterable  anguish :  now  to  the 
tune  of  a  great  laughter  and  heroic  shoutings 
like  the  cry  of  thunder.  Sometimes,  in  the 
silence  of  the  night-time,  one  may  hear  the 
tiny  hammerings  of  the  comrades  at  work  up 
in  the  dome  —  the  comrades  that  have  climbed 
ahead." 

To  this  church  every  man  belongs  who  is 
moved  in  any  measure  by  the  Christian  spirit, 
who  founds  his  life  in  any  degree  upon  the 
Christian  philosophy,  who  strives  however 
feebly  toward  the  Christian  ideal,  whether 
or  not  his  name  be  found  on  the  church 
register. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    CHURCH       197 

That  he  ought  also  in  virtue  of  this  rela- 
tion to  the  Church  Invisible  to  join  himself  in 
practical  devotion  and  service  to  some  branch 
of  the  Christian  organization  is  only  a  counsel 
of  common  sense. 

In  the  present  crisis  in  Europe,  we  of 
America,  secure  in  our  distance  from  the 
struggle,  may  indulge  our  sympathies  with 
one  side  or  the  other  according  to  our  prej- 
udices; but  the  loyal  citizen  of  Germany  or 
France  has  no  such  discretion.  He  must  go  to 
the  front  or  prove  traitor  to  the  deepest 
obligations  of  his  manhood.  And  when  he 
goes  to  the  front  he  must  go  not  as  a  free 
lance,  a  guerrilla,  obeying  his  own  impulses 
and  disregarding  the  plans  of  commander  in 
chief;  but  he  must  enter  the  ranks  of  the 
organized  army  and  become  part  of  the 
machine. 

The  parable  needs  no  exposition.  If  Chris- 
tianity be  in  any  sense  true,  if  its  ideals  have 
any  right  to  challenge  the  loyalty  of  humanity, 
then  there  can  be  no  neutrals  in  the  spiritual 
warfare  of  mankind.     We  may  not  compre- 


198  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN 

hend  the  program  of  the  Commander  in  Chief. 
We  may  not  in  all  respects  approve  the  tactics 
of  the  General  Staff.  We  may  criticize  the 
field  equipment,  we  may  recognize  the  blun- 
ders of  captains  and  corporals.  But  we  have 
no  right  to  refuse  to  enlist. 

With  all  her  limitations  and  mistakes  the 
Christian  Church  is  still  the  Army  of  Jesus 
Christ,  on  the  firing  line  of  the  world's  spiritual 
battle;  and  she  claims  the  loyalty  and  devo- 
tion of  every  soldier  of  righteousness,  until 
her  armor  of  "gray,  war-dinted  steel"  is 
exchanged  for  the  robe  and  palm  of  victory, 
and  the  imperfections  and  weakness  of  the 
Church  Militant  have  become  the  radiant 
perfection  of  the  Church  Triumphant  which  is 
without  fault  before  the  Throne  of  God. 


INDEX 


Agassiz,  Louis,  98. 
Apostolic  Age, 

Communism  in,  xv,  93,  94. 

Interpretation  of  Christianity, 
xiv,  xv. 

B 

Baptist,  Definition  of  a,  xiii. 
Bernhardi,  General  von,  64,  74. 
Browning,  Robert, 

Quotations  from,  vii,  xix,  20, 
47,  165. 

C 

Carnegie,  Andrew,  107. 
Catholic  Church, 
Asceticism,  31,  123. 
Distinction      between      "pre- 
cepts" and  "counsels  of  per- 
fection," xx,  27,  32. 
In  France  and  Italy,  167. 
In  the  Middle  Ages,  xviii. 
Cellini,  Benvenuto,  xix. 
Christian  as  Reformer,  The,  123, 

124. 
Christian  Doctrines, 
Atonement,  14,  15. 
Future  Punishment,  18-20,  140 

-146. 
Immortality,   17,  18,   162-165. 
Incarnation,  11-14. 
Love,   47,   61,    103,    122,    127. 


New  Birth,  The,  41,  42,  143- 

146. 
Return  of  Christ,  149-156. 
Total  Depravity,  142. 
Christianity  and  the  Social  Order, 
103,  109,  111-113,  134-139, 
156-162,  184,  185. 
Christianity  as  Experience,  115- 

122. 
Christians,  Typical,  129-134. 
Church,  The, 

Apostolic  Succession,  178-180. 
Authority  of,  175-177. 
Greatness  of,  188-198. 
Mistakes  of,  180-188. 
Modern  Conditions,  167. 


Edwards,  Jonathan,  140. 
Everybody's  Magazine, 

Popular  discussion  in,  ix. 
Evolution,  Doctrine  of,  ix,  6,  9. 


Francis  of  Assisi,  Saint,  90,  95, 
129. 

G 

Gilder,  Richard  Watson, 

Quotation  from,  16. 
Goldsmith,  Oliver, 

Quotation  from,  51. 


199 


200 


INDEX 


Gray,  Thomas, 
Quotation  from,  163. 

H 

Hale,  Edward  Everett, 

Exclusion     of,     from     Church 
Council,  xix. 
Harnack,  Professor  A.,  56. 


Ingersoll,  Robert,  3. 


Jesus, 

and  Poverty,  91-94,  98-101. 
Authority  of,  11-17,  43-44. 
Doctrine  of  Non-resistance,  39, 

58,  61-63. 
Paradoxes  of,  35-39. 
Principles  of,  44-53. 
Second  Coming  of,  149-156. 


Kant,  Immanuel, 

Essay  on  Perpetual  Peace,  76- 
85. 
Kingdom  of  God,  The,  91. 
Kipling,  Rudyard, 

Quotations  from,  83,  141,  172. 


Lowell,  J.  R., 
Quotation  from,  18. 

M 

Mair,  or  Major,  John,  Scottish 
Scholastic  Philosopher,  51. 


N 


Nicea,  Council  of, 

Homo-  or  homoi-ousion,  xvii. 
Noyes,  Alfred, 

Quotation  from,  86. 


Oppenheimer,   Franz,  88,   102. 
Origen  of  Alexandria,  95. 


Peace, 

Heroism  of,  85-87. 

Kant  on  "Perpetual,"  76-85. 


R 


Rockefeller,  John  D.,  90,  107. 
Rockefeller,  John  D.,  Jr.,  105. 


Servant  in  the  House,  The,  195. 
Spencer,  Herbert,  3,  9. 
State  as  an  Organism,  The,  64- 
67. 

T 

Taylor,  Father,  2. 
Tennyson,  Alfred, 

Quotation  from,  18. 
Tolstoi,  28,  34,  36,  55-57. 

U 
Union,  American,  80. 

W 
War, 

Benefits  from,  72-73. 


INDEX 


201 


In  Europe,  The,  vii,  xvi,  7,  72, 

76,  198. 
The  Christian  and,  70,  73. 
Wealth, 

Production  of,  103-106,  108. 
The  Christian  and,   110. 
Use  of,  106-110. 


Wendt,  32. 

Wesley,  John,  xii,  2,  9 

Wordsworth,  William, 

Quotation  from,  17. 
World  Court,  A, 

Lack  of,  69. 

Need  for,  79. 


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T 


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By  GEORGE  HODGES 

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This  volume  is  a  concise  statement  of  the  doctrine  and  discipline  of 
the  Episcopal  Church. 

It  is  intended  for  three  groups  —  the  younger  clergymen  who  will  find 
in  the  analyses  prefaced  to  the  chapters  material  that  will  be  valuable  in 
their  own  teaching,  members  of  confirmation  classes  who  will  be  helped  by 
the  summaries  which  it  contains,  and  persons  who  are  desirous  of  knowing 
the  doctrine  and  discipline  of  the  Episcopal  Church.  The  volume  em- 
bodies the  results  of  twenty  years'  experience  in  the  instruction  of  students 
in  the  Episcopal  Theological  School.  In  the  midst  of  many  natural 
differences  of  emphasis  and  opinion  there  are  indicated  in  this  work  those 
positions  in  which  most  members  of  the  Episcopal  Church  are  substantially 
agreed. 


CONTENTS 

I. 

The  Bible 

II. 

The  Prayer  Book 

III. 

Baptism     . 

IV. 

Confirmation 

V. 

Renunciation 

VI. 

Obedience 

VII. 

The  Creed 

VIII. 

The  Church 

IX. 

Prayer 

X. 

The  Holy  Com 

MUNION 

PAGE 

3 

21 

4i 

59 

77 

95 

117 

141 

165 

183 


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Publishers  64-66  Fifth  Avenue  New  York 


Henry  Codman  Potter 

Seventh  Bishop  of  New  York 

By  GEORGE  HODGES 

Illustrated.      Cloth,  8vo,  $J.J0 

It  will  be  a  source  of  gratification  to  Bishop 
Potter's  many  friends  to  learn  that  the  prepara- 
tion of  the  official  biography  of  Dr.  Potter  has 
been  entrusted  to  Dean  Hodges  of  the  Episco- 
pal Theological  School.  Long  conversant  with 
the  large  essentials  of  Dr.  Potter's  life,  his  train- 
ing and  sympathy  have  been  such  as  to  qualify 
him  to  do  the  task  well.  The  biography  that 
he  has  written  describes  Dr.  Potter's  career 
throughout  his  ministry,  especially  as  rector  of 
Grace  Church  and  as  bishop  of  New  York. 
The  great  public  services  of  Bishop  Potter  are 
also  dealt  with  at  length. 


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BOOKS  BY  PROFESSOR  RUDOLF  EUCKEN 

Winner  of  the  Nobel  Prize  for  Literature  in  1008 

Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal 

The  Fundamentals  of  a  New  Philosophy  of  Life 

By  RUDOLF  EUCKEN,  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  the  University 

of  Jena.     Translated  with  introductory  note  by  Alban  G.  Wid- 

GERY,  formerly  Scholar  of  St.  Catharine's  College,  and  Burney 

Student,  Cambridge,  and  Member  of  the  University  of  Jena. 

Cloth,  8vo,  $2.00 

Professor  Eucken  discusses  the  leading  principles  of  his  philosophy  and 
its  application  to  the  different  spheres  of  life.  By  careful  analysis  or  extant 
conceptions  of  life  the  author  shows  their  inadequacy,  the  necessity  for  a  new 
conception,  and  the  direction  in  which  this  must  be  sought.  The  author 
feels  that  he  has  a  message  for  the  present  time,  and  one  that  is  vital  to  the 
true  interests  of  all.  His  voice  is  that  of  a  prophet  in  the  sense  of  an  ethical 
teacher,  rather  than  that  of  a  philosopher  in  the  more  technical  sense. 

The  Meaning  and  Value  of  Life 

Translated  by 
LUCY  JUDGE  GIBSON  and  W.  R.  BOYCE  GIBSON,  M.A. 

Cloth,  i2mo,  $1.25 

"  There  are  scores  of  passages  throughout  the  volume  one  would  like  to 
quote  —  the  thinking  of  a  man  of  clearest  vision  and  loftiest  outlook  on  the 
fabric  of  life  as  men  are  fashioning  it  to-day.  It  is  a  volume  for  Church- 
men and  politicians  of  all  shades  and  parties,  for  the  student  and  for  the 
man  of  business,  for  the  work-shop  as  well  —  a  volume  for  everyone  who  is 
seriously  interested  in  the  great  business  of  life." 

Can  We  Still  Be  Christians  ? 

Translated  by  LUCY  JUDGE  GIBSON. 

Cloth,  i2mo,  $i.2$ 

As  might  be  expected  from  his  numerous  writings,  some  of  which  are  well 
known  in  this  country,  Dr.  Eucken's  answer  to  this  question  is  emphatically 
in  the  affirmative.  We  not  only  can,  but  must  still  be  Christians.  The  in- 
terest of  this  volume  lies  in  the  freshness  with  which  the  author  sets  forth 
his  own  personal  view — in  contrast  with  those  current  in  the  various 
churches  claiming  to  be  "  orthodox  "—  as  to  what  constitutes  the  veritable 
essence  of  that  Christianity  which  alone  can  appeal  to  the  modern  mind. 


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Date  Due 

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